Deaf Smith County Hospital District’s community paramedicine team leaders will share their experience deploying a robust community paramedicine program at the upcoming Texas EMS Conference. EMS director Terry Hazlett, EMT-P, and director of social services, Esmeralda Florez, LSW, will present on the benefits of collaboration in community medicine and share their experience with DSCHD’s award-winning community paramedicine program.

“The community paramedicine program continues to have an impact both in Hereford and across Texas,” said Candice Smith, MSN, RHCNOC, CCRN, Deaf Smith County Hospital District CEO. “The knowledge our skilled team shares with fellow EMS professionals will help foster new and innovative approaches to delivering care to patients right where it’s needed.”

The community paramedicine program brings together paramedics, nurses, social workers, physicians, and respiratory therapists to work with patients from the moment they are admitted to the hospital through to post-discharge. The team meets patients in their homes to address a wide range of needs, including safety or living condition issues, and helps patients keep appointments for follow-up visits and obtain medications, equipment, and any social services they may need to continue recovering at home and avoid re-hospitalization.

The community paramedicine program received the 2023 Bill Aston Award for Quality from the Texas Hospital Association, recognizing its innovation and outcomes, including a reduction in hospital readmissions from 35 percent to just five percent in its first year.

The Texas EMS Conference brings together top educators from across the field of EMS to provide continuing education and share insights and best practices that enable attendees to advance care innovations in their own communities. This year’s conference is held Nov. 24-27.

Visit https://dschd.org/our-services/community-paramedicine/ to learn more about the program and see it in action here.