Hospital uses paramedicine, mobile clinics to address gaps in rural primary care

Rural communities often have unique challenges when it comes to accessing health care. Some rural hospitals, like Rush Memorial Hospital, have had to invest in ways to connect people to care.

Many of those ideas were used before the COVID-19 public health emergency, but Rush Memorial expanded them — including paramedicine.

Joyce Geis, a family nurse practitioner at Rush Memorial Hospital, said they send paramedics to patients’ homes to provide care.

“They can help with post-hospital follow ups and they help integrate patients with other facilities or with other services within their community,” Geis said.

Geis said the paramedics have the opportunity to look for any environmental factors affecting a patient’s health.

Geis also said Rush Memorial uses other strategies to connect with rural patients, including telehealth, remote patient monitoring and even a mobile clinic.

Rush Memorial started using a mobile unit last year to connect rural patients to primary care.

The unit resembles an RV, with two rooms that have the same tools someone might see in a traditional primary care office. Providers can take vitals, gather samples and administer point-of-care testing for things like strep, COVID-19 and the flu.

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During the COVID-19 public health emergency, Rush Memorial was focused on how to get the vaccine to the community. But Geis wanted to take that idea further. She saw an opportunity to invest in a mobile clinic that would be able to fill gaps in health care access in the area.

“You can take the doctor's office right to the patient or right to the area that you're trying to serve,” Geis said.

Geis said the mobile unit allows her hospital to do that in a variety of ways.

“We do health fairs,” Geis said. “We do clinics. We do just regular routine visits, emergency preparation. I can't tell you how many firefighters or EMTs walk through there and say, ‘Oh, great, we have an emergency. We're using this sucker.’”

Geis said Rush Memorial also uses other strategies to connect with rural patients, including telehealth, remote patient monitoring and other tools.

Abigail is our health reporter. Contact them at aruhman@wboi.org.