Hospitals in the Buckeye area are reporting a 60 percent decrease in readmissions of recently treated patients in the last 6 months. Officials are crediting the city’s experimental paramedicine program.
The program offers paramedic house calls to patients who were recently released from the hospital for conditions like heart attack, congestive heart failure and hip replacements.
Bob Costello, Buckeye’s Fire Chief, said so far about 100 patients have been referred to the program.
"One of the things we really concentrate on is that they understand their follow up directions," he said. "That they understand their illness or their injury, they understand the pharmacology needs that they’re going to have."
Costello added the pilot project was developed from the need to comply with tightening hospital readmission rate requirements under the Affordable Care Act.
The city of Buckeye plans to extend the program for an additional six months to collect more data.
