I think (or at least hope) this is the direction medicine is headed in...
In the early (Johnny and Roy) days, it was _all_ telemedicine (send the strip and start LR...). We slowly got away from that for a variety of reasons, and are just now heading back to it.
While I'm not a huge fan of 'mother may I' medicine, I think it's crazy not to leverage the major advances in communications technology to bring a much broader range of specialties into the back of an ambulance.
Some area are having a lot of success with Paramedic Practitioners. The idea being that the can a) handle 'routine' medical calls without a trip to the ER, and can b) make proactive welfare checks on known frequent fliers (brittle diabetics, etc), reducing the load on the EMS system in general. Obviously they're also available as advanced level providers when needed, but this gives them something to do (and bill for) in their downtime.
In the early (Johnny and Roy) days, it was _all_ telemedicine (send the strip and start LR...). We slowly got away from that for a variety of reasons, and are just now heading back to it.
While I'm not a huge fan of 'mother may I' medicine, I think it's crazy not to leverage the major advances in communications technology to bring a much broader range of specialties into the back of an ambulance.
Some area are having a lot of success with Paramedic Practitioners. The idea being that the can a) handle 'routine' medical calls without a trip to the ER, and can b) make proactive welfare checks on known frequent fliers (brittle diabetics, etc), reducing the load on the EMS system in general. Obviously they're also available as advanced level providers when needed, but this gives them something to do (and bill for) in their downtime.