School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio (CCQ-Y); Chronic Brain Injury Program, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio (CCQ-Y); Sports Medicine Research Institute, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio (CCQ-Y); Upper Arlington Fire Division, Upper Arlington, Ohio (DW, MW); Westerville Division of Fire, Westerville, Ohio (MG); Department of Orthopaedics, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio (JMW, ES, CEQ); Health Information Management and Systems, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio (JHG); Department of Biomedical Informatics, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio (JHG, JFPB, SF); Center for Surgical Health Assessment, Research, and Policy (SHARP), The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, Columbus, Ohio (JFPB, HPS, CEQ); Department of Surgery, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio (HPS); Department of Emergency Surgery, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio (ARP); Center for EMS, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio (ARP).
Prehosp Emerg Care. 2022 May-Jun;26(3):410-421. doi: 10.1080/10903127.2021.1922556. Epub 2021 May 27.
Getting effective fall prevention into the homes of medically and physically vulnerable individuals is a critical public health challenge. Community paramedicine is emerging globally as a new model of care that allows emergency medical service units to evaluate and treat patients in non-emergency contexts for prevention efforts and chronic care management. The promise of community paramedicine as a delivery system for fall prevention that scales to community-level improvements in outcomes is compelling but untested. To study the impact of a community paramedic program's optimization of a fall prevention system entailing a clinical pathway and learning health system (called Community-FIT) on community-level fall-related emergency medical service utilization rates. We used an implementation science framework and quality improvement methods to design and optimize a fall prevention model of care that can be embedded within community paramedic operations. The model was implemented and optimized in an emergency medical service agency servicing a Midwestern city in the United States (∼35,000 residents). Primary outcome measures included relative risk reduction in the number of community-level fall-related 9-1-1 calls and fall-related hospital transports. Interrupted time series analysis was used to evaluate relative risk reduction from a 12-month baseline period (September 2016 - August 2017) to a 12-month post-implementation period (September 2018-August 2019). Community paramedic home visits increased from 25 in 2017, to 236 in 2018, to 517 in 2019, indicating a large increase in the number of households that benefited from the efforts. A relative risk reduction of 0.66 (95% [CI] 0.53, 0.76) in the number of fall calls and 0.63 (95% [CI] 0.46, 0.75) in the number of fall-related calls resulting in transports to the hospital were observed. Community-FIT may offer a powerful mechanism for community paramedics to reduce fall-related 9-1-1 calls and transports to hospitals that can be implemented in emergency medical agencies across the country.
将有效的跌倒预防措施引入到身体和医疗上脆弱的个人家庭中是一项关键的公共卫生挑战。社区医疗正在全球范围内兴起,成为一种新的护理模式,使紧急医疗服务单位能够在非紧急情况下评估和治疗患者,以进行预防工作和慢性病管理。社区医疗作为一种跌倒预防的交付系统的前景令人信服,因为它可以扩大到社区层面的改善结果,但尚未经过测试。本研究旨在探讨社区医疗计划优化跌倒预防系统(涉及临床路径和学习健康系统,称为 Community-FIT)对社区层面跌倒相关紧急医疗服务利用率的影响。我们使用实施科学框架和质量改进方法来设计和优化一种可以嵌入社区医疗业务中的跌倒护理模式。该模型在美国中西部城市的一个紧急医疗服务机构中实施和优化(约 35,000 名居民)。主要结果指标包括社区层面与跌倒相关的 9-1-1 呼叫和跌倒相关的医院转运数量的相对风险降低。中断时间序列分析用于评估从 12 个月的基线期(2016 年 9 月-2017 年 8 月)到 12 个月的实施后期(2018 年 9 月-2019 年 8 月)的相对风险降低。社区医疗人员的家访从 2017 年的 25 次增加到 2018 年的 236 次,再增加到 2019 年的 517 次,这表明受益家庭的数量大幅增加。观察到跌倒呼叫数量的相对风险降低了 0.66(95%CI 0.53,0.76),跌倒相关呼叫导致送往医院的转运数量的相对风险降低了 0.63(95%CI 0.46,0.75)。Community-FIT 可能为社区医疗人员提供一种强大的机制,以减少与跌倒相关的 9-1-1 呼叫和送往医院的转运,该机制可以在全国范围内的紧急医疗机构中实施。