The future of community paramedicine
Historically, the function of emergency medical services has been two-fold: To provide medical assistance during acute and life-threatening medical conditions, and to transport patients to hospital emergency departments. As emergency care facilities and personnel are expected to deal with routine and uncommon problems alike, operations and maintenance of paramedic units incur high costs. Various models to integrate these units into community healthcare are now being proposed to optimise the cost-benefit ratio of emergency medical services.