North East Chief and CEO Kevin McGinnis is delighted to announce: "Two of my tremendously esteemed colleagues in the world of community paramedicine (CP), Dan Swayze and Matt Zavadsky, will visit us next week and share the experiences they've had in implementing Community Paramedicine in their health systems, which are a few years ahead of us in Maine."

NEMHS will be welcoming Dan Swayze, DPH, Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of the Center for Emergency Medicine of Western Pennsylvania, Inc. and co-founder of Emed Health, a division of the Center dedicated to researching community paramedicine programs. Since 2006, they have served more than 50,000 people using paramedics and EMTs in health promotion and disease prevention roles. Matt Zavadsky is Public Affairs Director at MedStar Mobile Healthcare, the exclusive emergency and non-emergency Emergency Medical Services provider for Fort Worth and 14 surrounding cities in North Texas. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) has profiled this program on its healthcare Innovation Exchange. Over the past three years, MedStar community health programs have significantly reduced EMS and Emergency Department use. MedStar achieves this by proactively doing home visits, educating the patients/families and connecting them to healthcare resources. MedStar has been successful in having payers begin payment for these programs because of the savings they are achieving and the improvement in their patient’s health status.

Monday, March 25th will be dedicated to meetings taking place at Maine Health, MaineCare and at some legislative offices in Augusta. On Tuesday, March 26th, Swayze and Zavadsky will spend the day at North East. In an informal, interactive setting with NEMHS leadership, current community paramedicine students, and other interested staff, they will repeat their presentations, share their insights and discuss the future of community paramedicine here in Maine.

North East Mobile Health Services' Community Paramedicine Pilot Project, approved by Maine EMS, is slated to launch on May 1st of this year. It will initially serve the greater Portland area from our Scarborough Base. It will expand to the service areas of, and delivered from, our division bases in Biddeford/Sanford (York County), Topsham/Dresden/Richmond (Cumberland/Sagadahoc/Lincoln Counties), and greater Rockport (Knox/Waldo Counties).