Effect of Community Paramedic Demographic on Patient Perception
I worked with grad student Oluwakemi Adio under the guidance of professor Dr. Laura Ikuma to study a local community paramedicine program. This project was my first experience with collegiate research. What struck me most was the lack of a road map when you're the one doing research; it's up to you to design the experiment and figure out the proper analysis. To learn more about my project, read my abstract below or view my poster.
Abstract
There is a small portion of East Baton Rouge Parish (EBRP) residents that repeatedly utilize emergency medical services (EMS), causing strain on the already over-worked emergency system. These residents account for about 20% of 911 calls, but only 1% of the population. The EBRP EMS department implemented a Community Integrated Healthcare Program (CIHP) to educate overutilizers and reduce the burden on the EMS system. While multiple programs similar to EBRP’s CIHP exist, there is minimal research about the effectiveness of these programs. For this paper, we analyzed the CIHP paramedics’ perception of overutilizers, CIHP patients, and the program itself. We completed semi-structured interviews with 16 CIHP paramedics involved with the program. A thematic analysis was conducted using Quirkos software to create a coherent narrative of the perceptions of CIHP paramedics. I analyzed thematic codes for relationships with paramedic demographics and used t-tests to examine differences between genders and age groups. Preliminary results indicate that male paramedics focused on the reasons behind overutilization more than female paramedics (p=0.0654); however, when the female paramedics discussed reasons for overutilization, they focused on patients’ lack of transportation more than male paramedics (p=0.0535). Moreover, female paramedics talked more about the education offered by CIHP whereas male paramedics made more paternalistic comments (p=0.0499, p=0.0562). This variation between genders could affect how the CIHP paramedics approach and treat patients. This information is relevant to EBRP EMS or the leaders of similar programs so they can ensure consistent patient care.