HARLINGEN, Texas (ValleyCentral) — The South Texas Emergency Care Foundation in Harlingen is launching a new program for community members in need of a medical service.
The Community Health Paramedicine program allows paramedics to deliver health care in patients homes via truck rather than an ambulance unit.
“Community Health Paramedicine is a little bit different than our typical 911 response that we think about,” Mckenzie Ford, Project Coordinator at STEC said. “We have a smaller response vehicle, it’s a little bit less intimidating. We send one paramedic to a patient’s home after they’ve enrolled.”
The program’s units include the same equipment of an ambulance such as ventilators, IV pumps, blood analysis machine and a portable ultrasound machine.
STEC works in partnership with Harlingen Medical Center and Valley Baptist Medical Center to receive patients who meet the requirements for non-emergency and primary medical services.
“We’re looking for patients that are either high risk admission or high utilizer of 911,” Ford said. Right now, we are limited enrollment and that’s toward hospital patients that are discharging that are referred by the care management at those facilities.”
STEC is the first emergency foundation to bring a mobile integrated health model in the Rio Grande Valley.