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Table of Contents:
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As NY Loses One in Five EMS Workers, Community Paramedics Step In to Fill the Gap
Region of the week
Penticton Launches Mobile Outreach Unit to Bring Health and Harm Reduction Services to the Street
Read Time: 4 minutes
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Rural Care
Rural New York ambulance squads are expanding into community paramedicine, sending EMTs into patients' homes on scheduled visits rather than responding only to 911 calls, essentially turning ambulances into rolling clinics for people who struggle to access care.
For patients like Lisa Davindonis and her father, the program is a lifeline: they receive weekly wound care and blood pressure checks at home, sparing them a 45-minute trip to Saratoga with no public transportation available to them.
Community paramedics like AEMT Colin Bouchard coordinate directly with primary care physicians, flagging health concerns and getting timely responses, catching problems before they escalate into full emergencies.
New York's rural EMS system is under serious strain: 43 of the state's 62 counties are considered rural, and many ambulance agencies are underfunded, overwhelmed with calls, and struggling just to keep trucks on the road.
State officials warn that New York has lost nearly one in five active EMS providers in just a few years, leaving dangerous coverage gaps in communities that already face long drives to the nearest hospital.
Sponsored By: Julota
Julota's MIH-CP software empowers community paramedics to deliver smarter, more connected care by simplifying fragmented data and streamlining processes. With real-time patient insights, automated reporting, customizable workflows, secure HIPAA and CFR-42-compliant collaboration, and actionable analytics, Julota enables impactful care and improved outcomes. Designed to bridge healthcare and social determinants of health, it helps your program stay ahead of change.
Region of the Week: British Columbia
More than half of BC's 101 full-time community paramedic positions are currently unfilled, 53 are open and 7 more are only covered by temporary backfill, across 95 stations serving 65 communities.
Community paramedics are licensed BC paramedics focused on preventive rather than emergency medicine, providing services like home visits, wound care, blood pressure monitoring, and chronic disease management for seniors and vulnerable residents.
The staffing shortage hits rural areas especially hard. In Fort Nelson, for example, the Northern Rockies Regional Municipality, covering 10% of BC's geographic area, is struggling to retain a community paramedic and has formally lobbied BC Emergency Health Services for more hires.
The program delivers measurable results: in Surrey, community paramedics visiting a supportive housing building twice a week over a year led to 38% fewer 911 calls and an estimated $450,000 in health-care savings.
BC Emergency Health Services says it is working with the Ministry of Health to increase staffing by recruiting from rural and Indigenous communities and partnering with training organizations to deliver local certification programs, acknowledging that obtaining the required credentials is a key barrier for remote applicants.
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Mobile Integrated Care Facility
P+OPS and the Penticton Access Centre have jointly launched the Mobile Integrated Service Centre, a new outreach program designed to bring services directly to residents who may have difficulty accessing care through traditional settings.
The program had been operating in a limited capacity for roughly six weeks before rolling out its full range of services, following confirmation from the regional health authority that it could proceed.
The mobile unit includes an Overdose Prevention Service and drug sample collection — services whose full launch was deliberately delayed while organizers ensured compliance with current legal requirements following the end of BC's drug decriminalization policies.
Through the partnership, Penticton Access Centre staff meet with individuals inside the mobile unit to help with resource navigation and connect people with health and social services.
The goal of bringing services directly into the community is to reduce barriers for residents who struggle to make or keep appointments in conventional settings.