OUR COMMUNITY
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18 | MARCH 16 • 2023
ON THE COVER
They both provide life-sav-
ing care to patients at the
scene of an emergency and
during transportation in an
ambulance. EMTs are quali-
fied to assess critical illnesses
and injuries, provide first-
aid treatment and perform
basic life-saving health care.
Paramedics are more highly
trained EMTs capable of more
advanced medical procedures,
such as providing oral and
intravenous medication, mon-
itoring electrocardiograms
(EKG) and performing trache-
otomies.
“The main difference is para-
medics can administer drugs,
”
Sigler said. “They can also intu-
bate patients when needed.
”
Soloff said to qualify to pro-
vide to Advanced Life Support,
Hatzalah will need another three
or four paramedics. It will take
time to train those volunteers.
To qualify as an EMT, a
volunteer needs at least 200
hours of classroom work and
100 hours of clinical work. To
qualify as a paramedic, they
need 600 hours of classroom
training and 600 hours of clin-
ical work, “which can be dif-
ficult to accomplish when you
also have a job and family, so
it will take time to get people
trained,” Soloff said.
Another of Hatzalah’s short-
to-midterm goals is to have
a headquarters of its own. It
currently rents space in the
Oak Park municipal center, but
space is uncomfortably tight.
“The city of Oak Park is
working to get us more space,
but eventually we’re going to
need a place to garage our new
ambulances,” Soloff said.
“
At some point we’ll need a
new facility — a place to call
home where we can store our
supplies, provide training and
community education and
health awareness for the public.
We’d like to help people learn
the basics of first aid that any
bystander can take in the event
of emergency. The more people
who have basic training, the
more people can be helped.”
LONG-TERM GOAL:
COMMUNITY
PARAMEDICINE
Within 10 years, Hatzalah MI
would like to be a Community
Paramedicine provider. “It’s our
ultimate goal,
” Soloff said.
Community Paramedicine
is a relatively new and evolv-
ing healthcare model that
enhances the role of EMS
providers so that they are
partners in public health and
community healthcare deliv-
ery. Currently, there are no
Community Paramedicines in
Oakland County.
For this model, paramedics
will need a bit more training.
“Once certified, these para-
medics operate under a hos-
pital system or doctors within
a hospital system that allow
for the paramedic to provide
treatments to take place in the
patient’s home,” Sigler said.
“The intent is to keep chron-
ically ill patients
out of the hospital
and provide treat-
ments they need at
home.
“Initially, the primary
purpose of Community
Paramedicine was to prevent
people from going back to the
hospital after discharge,
” Sigler
continued.
Once a patient is discharged
from the hospital, they might
not see a doctor again for a
month. But what happens
from the time they were sick
enough to be in a hospital
until they see a doctor again?
It was found that 20% to 30%
of those people just ended up
back in the hospital.
“What if we can prevent
people from even going into
the hospital at all?” Sigler
said. “With Community
Paramedicine, paramedics
show up on scene, teleconfer-
ence with a doctor and become
his or her eyes and ears and
treat the patient at home.
”
In this model, Hatzalah
paramedics would be able to
administer certain medications
like antibiotics and chemo. “It’s
like a primary care internist
type medi-
cine,
” Sigler
said.
According
to Sigler,
the reason
Community
Paramedicine hasn’t taken off
is because insurance companies
don’t know how to bill for it.
But since Hatzalah is an organi-
zation that does not take money
from its consumers, it would be
able to provide the service if it
had the funding.
“It’s doable,
” Soloff said.
“That’s the vision. The 10-year
plan. We’ll see if we get there.
”
Hatzalah can get there with
the help of the community.
You don’t need to be an EMT
or have specialized training to
help. The organization can use
all kinds of volunteers, from
people who can help with its
website, to dispatchers willing
to give three hours of their
time, to tech-savvy people
who can help keep its systems
in order.
And, of course, it needs
donors to reach its goals. To
help Hatzalah in its mission
of hatzalas nefashos, the saving
of lives, you can make a dona-
tion at https://mihatzalah.org/
donate.
The volunteers who help save lives with Hatzalah.
RIGHT: Hatzalah medical service badge.
Find these and other Israel@75 events at jewishdetroit.org/I75
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