The community paramedic - Essay Example

THE COMMUNITY PARAMEDIC Identify some communication strategies or tools that can assist in communication between the health careteam and the patient.The root cause of poor medical treat, excess pain, unnecessary errors, and even death of patients is often communication problems between healthcare workers and patients. It is therefore very crucial to ensure effective communication between patients and healthcare providers for maximum care as well as the reduction of such unpleasant effects. In order to provide effective health care, there should be effective transfer of crucial information between the healthcare team and the patient (Epstein et al., 2005). A structured form or tool of communication likes the Situation-Background- Assessment- Recommendation (commonly referred to as SBAR) technique should be used.

This helps in the identification of all the relevant facts about the patient and communicating it to the team in order to avoid the misunderstanding of what may arise particularly the level of expected care. The communication tool that may be used could be written, verbal, or both. Members of the health care team may use a record and read back process before actually taking an action on either a verbal order or verbal report of essential test results of patients (Epstein et al., 2005). Verbal communication such as telephone call or face-to-face conversation may be used.

Face-to-face communication is more preferable since it allows for close and direct interaction between the health care team and the patient. Face-to-face communication also provides nonverbal information expressed by facial expression and body language. Written communication, on the other hand, assist the health care team to convey clinical information in an organized manner (Lyndon, 2006). It also provides the patient with hard copy of background information that is computer-generated for reference.

There should also be documentation of all interactions between the health care provider and the patient in order to help in making referral. How could a community paramedic improve or strengthen the care coordination of a person with a chronic disease in the community.In order to improve the care coordination, there should be a close working relationship between the community paramedic and the patients and a well as their family members. The community paramedic should develop personal relationship with people with a chronic disease by accessing their homes.

They need to constantly remind the patients of the forthcoming appointments. Involvement of the family members ensures consistency of care to such patients because family members are in close contact with the patients and are able to monitor them very effectively (Bodenheimer, Wagner, & Grumbach, 2002). The family members are able to arrange for the patient’s transport to any appointment. Effective personal relationships results in total trust thus enabling the community paramedic to provide further services that may be necessary in helpi9ng the patient to manage their condition.

What challenges would you face in caring for someone at home with a terminal or end stage illness? Discuss the importance of advance directives in this context.It is very difficult for paramedics to manager patients that have terminal illness because of their unending demands. It is hard to identify exactly what they require because they have become incapacitated. It is, therefore, stressful to manage them as well as the family members who are in denial. Advance care directive is helpful for such patients because it legally allows them to decide on the kind of care they will receive (Silvester & Detering, 2011).

It also protects the paramedic should anything unfavorable happen. It gives removes the burden on the family to decide on the kind of care to be given to the patient because they chooses it themselves.ReferencesBodenheimer, T., Wagner, E. H., & Grumbach, K. (2002). Improving primary care for patients with chronic illness. JAMA : The Journal of the American Medical Association, 288, 1775–1779. doi:10.1001/jama.288.14.1775Epstein, R. M., Franks, P., Fiscella, K., Shields, C. G., Meldrum, S. C., Kravitz, R. L., & Duberstein, P. R. (2005).

Measuring patient-centered communication in Patient-Physician consultations: Theoretical and practical issues. In Social Science and Medicine (Vol. 61, pp. 1516–1528). doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2005.02.001Lyndon, A. (2006). Communication and teamwork in patient care: how much can we learn from aviation? Journal of Obstetric, Gynecologic, and Neonatal Nursing : JOGNN / NAACOG. doi:10.1111/j.1552-6909.2006.00074.xSilvester, W., & Detering, K. (2011). Advance directives, perioperative care and end-of-life planning.

Best Practice and Research: Clinical Anaesthesiology, 25, 451–460. doi:10.1016/j.bpa.2011.07.005