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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