Caregiver Support in Action: Sault Ste Marie Community Paramedicine

Community paramedicine programs are proven to reduce 911 calls, improve patient quality of life, and reduce chronic disease risk.

Sault Ste. Marie’s Community Paramedicine Program does just that, delivering non-emergency, in-home healthcare to the more than 70,000 residents in this rural northern
community.

Its focus: serving older adults with complex medical needs who may be at risk of hospitalization or are awaiting long term care—many of whom have caregivers living with them.

These caregivers, who provide up to 75% of patient care, also need support to keep them healthy, well, and able to continue providing critical care.

But staff are facing increased demands to provide more than medical care, and to support things like system navigation as well as unique complexities at home through emotional support.

This doesn’t just increase pressure on staff: these capacity issues can mean less opportunities to support caregivers and increase the risk of caregiver burnout. With data showing that improved caregiver health and wellbeing directly correlate with improved patient outcomes, this can also have consequences for quality of care.

Reducing Provider Burden

That’s where Caregiver Link Workers come in. Partnering with Sault Ste. Marie’s Community Paramedicine Program, Caregiver Link Workers from our Caregiver Social Prescribing Program join their staff for home visits: supporting the caregiver while the paramedicine team supports the patient—AKA tandem visits.

Through training and experience, Caregiver Link Workers understand the unique challenges caregivers face and can connect them to the right local, culturally appropriate, recreational, and social systems and services they need.

By ensuring that caregivers are meaningfully engaged with and supported, they strengthen the overall community-based supports and services offered by paramedicine programs.

Our program evaluation indicated that these tandem visits helped reduce provider burden:

• 100% of healthcare providers agree that caregiver link workers enhanced their caregiver support efforts

• 50% of caregivers avoided non-urgent emergency department visits or hospital admissions. Allowing for more efficient and comprehensive care, this collaborative model has proven its potential to improve provider, patient, and caregiver well-being alike.