‘So great’: Community Paramedicine program helping lots of Sault seniors

The Community Paramedicine program put into place last year to bring preventative care to people living in senior's housing, retirement homes and seniors at home has grown in its one year of operation in the Sault.

Launched in August 2022, the Community Paramedicine (CP) program is an all-new service that will complement the existing front-line paramedic service already in operation in Sault Ste. Marie.

The program, which is operated by the Sault Ste. Marie Paramedic Services, uses fully certified paramedics to offer clinics at senior's housing and retirement homes and a second phase of the program began offering in-home visits.

The paramedics offer a whole host of services for the patients, who are mostly seniors, including ongoing medical management, remote monitoring, and blood and urine work.

“Our goal is to assist in achieving medical stability when possible,” said Julie Cole, superintendent of Community Paramedicine. “We have already seen very positive results in our community, not only from a medical perspective but from a quality of life perspective."

By paying regular visits to seniors in their homes and through the clinics, the hope is to decrease the number of avoidable 911 calls and prevent Emergency Department visits for low-acuity concerns, thus taking pressure off the system as a whole.

The program currently has 273 patients enrolled for home visits and paramedics see approximately 200 additional patients through the bi-weekly clinics held at four different locations within Sault Ste. Marie.

Natalie Baldelli was 85 when she died this past August, but daughter-in-law Jennifer Baldelli said the Community Paramedicine program made all of the difference in her quality of life while she lived at the Finnish Resthome.

Jennifer said her mother-in-law was the first CP patient to be offered home visits and bonded especially with paramedic Kara Ribic, who was assigned to her.

“At the very beginning it was about getting Natalie on to a routine of knowing what to do every day,” said Jennifer. “It was quite a routine but Kara helped us make sure all of the supports we had put in place were all functioning and happening. In the beginning Kara made sure Natalie was taking her medications correctly, we had them in a blister pack. So Kara was making sure she wasn’t missing a day.”

Jennifer said Ribic went above and beyond the call of duty to make Natalie safe and comfortable, allowing her to live independently for longer than if the program had not been available.

“It really had the effect of boosting Natalie’s morale because COVID did a real number on the elderly — her health went downhill, she didn’t have the social interactions she needed and we really noticed the difference,” said Jennifer. “Once we got all of these mechanisms in place with Kara and the housekeeper, and Meals on Wheels knocking on her door every day, she just blossomed and her last year of life was a real happy one and it was all because of these programs. It was a tremendous difference.”

Ribic even got a special thank you in Natalie’s obituary.

“We wanted to make sure the community knows this program is out there and how great it is, because it was so great for us and so great for Natalie,” said Jennifer. “We would be remiss if we didn’t take the time to thank them.”

Ribic had been a paramedic on the 911 side for 15 years when she decided to be among the first to sign up for the CP program when it launched last year.

“One of the main goals of this program is to slow the usage of 911 from people who maybe rely on the emergency department for their primary source of treatment,” said Ribic. “Here you are getting to know the people, you are developing more of a trust relationship and really delving into the different factors that contribute to illness.”

She said working on the 911 side is much more fast-paced than working in the CP program, but calls are over so quickly before you head to the next one. In CP, paramedics spend more time on preventative care and forming relationships with the patient over multiple visits. 

“I was looking and craving something new and something that could expand my skill set and my knowledge base and very quickly both of those things opened up on this side,” said Ribic. ”Even just in setting a small goal with a patient and reaching that over a couple of months is a great feeling.”

One of the biggest challenges for paramedics in the CP program is just helping people to navigate the system.

”Especially to our more senior seniors. They are not on computers or in the digital world at all. They would have no ability to find out what resources are out there, let alone access them,” said Ribic. "Half the time, referrals are closed, meaning they have to come from an agency or a primary care physician, and we have been able to circumvent that system a little bit and get them inroads where they fit for services in other agencies.”

Ribic said as a paramedic attending a 911 call, she would often see people at one of the lowest points of their life to try and keep them alive. It can be a different story on the CP side, as she is able to help people with preventative care to actually try and prevent a more tragic outcome.

“Seeing someone who doesn’t really have any other resource coming to see them, they light up,” she said. “You see how they change over the course of a few weeks or a few months and how they get better overall — their mental health and the whole picture improves.”