Cargando…

Patients Seeking Retreatment after Community Paramedic Assessment and Treatment: Piloting a Community Paramedic Unit Program in Southwest Finland

Community paramedic (CP) units are becoming more popular in enhancing a person’s access to the need for care assessment and treatment in acute but non-life-threatening health issues. Simultaneously CP units can reduce the strain on emergency departments (EDs) by treating patients effectively at home...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Hänninen, Joonas, Kouvonen, Anne, Sumanen, Hilla
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8608090/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34968351
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/nursrep10020010
_version_ 1784602688321748992
author Hänninen, Joonas
Kouvonen, Anne
Sumanen, Hilla
author_facet Hänninen, Joonas
Kouvonen, Anne
Sumanen, Hilla
author_sort Hänninen, Joonas
collection PubMed
description Community paramedic (CP) units are becoming more popular in enhancing a person’s access to the need for care assessment and treatment in acute but non-life-threatening health issues. Simultaneously CP units can reduce the strain on emergency departments (EDs) by treating patients effectively at home. The efficacy of CP units is proven in previous studies, but the details of conditions patients seek retreatment at the ED after a CP unit visit are largely unknown. This study aimed to categorize CP unit patients (n = 229) seeking retreatment after a CP unit visit and investigate links between CP unit actions and patients seeking retreatment. The study was based on a data set from a six-month CP unit pilot program in Finland. The main results show that 82% of the patients assessed and treated by the CP unit did not seek retreatment. Low back symptoms and nausea were the main problems patients presented to the ED within 96 h after the CP visit. On-call physician consultation (p = 0.335) or CP unit treatment time (p = 0.629) were not associated with the frequency of ED presentation. Further studies are needed in order to investigate which types of emergency medical missions are the most suitable for CP units. The findings of this study support the effectiveness of community paramedicine programs.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-8608090
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2020
publisher MDPI
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-86080902021-12-28 Patients Seeking Retreatment after Community Paramedic Assessment and Treatment: Piloting a Community Paramedic Unit Program in Southwest Finland Hänninen, Joonas Kouvonen, Anne Sumanen, Hilla Nurs Rep Article Community paramedic (CP) units are becoming more popular in enhancing a person’s access to the need for care assessment and treatment in acute but non-life-threatening health issues. Simultaneously CP units can reduce the strain on emergency departments (EDs) by treating patients effectively at home. The efficacy of CP units is proven in previous studies, but the details of conditions patients seek retreatment at the ED after a CP unit visit are largely unknown. This study aimed to categorize CP unit patients (n = 229) seeking retreatment after a CP unit visit and investigate links between CP unit actions and patients seeking retreatment. The study was based on a data set from a six-month CP unit pilot program in Finland. The main results show that 82% of the patients assessed and treated by the CP unit did not seek retreatment. Low back symptoms and nausea were the main problems patients presented to the ED within 96 h after the CP visit. On-call physician consultation (p = 0.335) or CP unit treatment time (p = 0.629) were not associated with the frequency of ED presentation. Further studies are needed in order to investigate which types of emergency medical missions are the most suitable for CP units. The findings of this study support the effectiveness of community paramedicine programs. MDPI 2020-11-13 /pmc/articles/PMC8608090/ /pubmed/34968351 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/nursrep10020010 Text en © 2020 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) ).
spellingShingle Article
Hänninen, Joonas
Kouvonen, Anne
Sumanen, Hilla
Patients Seeking Retreatment after Community Paramedic Assessment and Treatment: Piloting a Community Paramedic Unit Program in Southwest Finland
title Patients Seeking Retreatment after Community Paramedic Assessment and Treatment: Piloting a Community Paramedic Unit Program in Southwest Finland
title_full Patients Seeking Retreatment after Community Paramedic Assessment and Treatment: Piloting a Community Paramedic Unit Program in Southwest Finland
title_fullStr Patients Seeking Retreatment after Community Paramedic Assessment and Treatment: Piloting a Community Paramedic Unit Program in Southwest Finland
title_full_unstemmed Patients Seeking Retreatment after Community Paramedic Assessment and Treatment: Piloting a Community Paramedic Unit Program in Southwest Finland
title_short Patients Seeking Retreatment after Community Paramedic Assessment and Treatment: Piloting a Community Paramedic Unit Program in Southwest Finland
title_sort patients seeking retreatment after community paramedic assessment and treatment: piloting a community paramedic unit program in southwest finland
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8608090/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34968351
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/nursrep10020010
work_keys_str_mv AT hanninenjoonas patientsseekingretreatmentaftercommunityparamedicassessmentandtreatmentpilotingacommunityparamedicunitprograminsouthwestfinland
AT kouvonenanne patientsseekingretreatmentaftercommunityparamedicassessmentandtreatmentpilotingacommunityparamedicunitprograminsouthwestfinland
AT sumanenhilla patientsseekingretreatmentaftercommunityparamedicassessmentandtreatmentpilotingacommunityparamedicunitprograminsouthwestfinland