PAR5320 · Community paramedicine 1

Overview

This unit will introduce the scope, context and role of the paramedic working in a community paramedicine role including the obligations, documentation and reporting requirements as well as referral options and pathways for patients. This unit will address the role of community paramedicine in the health care system including public health and primary care and the role of health promotion within the community. This unit will also focus on the advanced assessment, management, prescribing and referral of patients with complex chronic conditions across the continuum of disease progression and finally, explore how patients presenting with low acuity complaints can be cared for in the urgent or primary care setting.

Areas of study: Paramedic practice

Offerings

Assessment

The Handbook does not list a final examination among the assessment items. That is not a guarantee there is none.

Assessment details may change. Please refer to the assessment information in Moodle closer to the start of the teaching period.

Requisites

The Handbook lists no prerequisite, corequisite or prohibition for this unit.

Learning outcomes

1. Apply the practices of advanced prescribing, health promotion, health assessment, discharge planning and a range of treatment schedules using an evidence-based approach.
2. Recognise risk factors for disease or injury, while using appropriate screening tools to be able to triage patients to remain in their home, refer to general practice or other appropriate health services.
3. Synthesise how community health practitioners might relate to and coordinate with hospital emergency departments, general practitioners and other healthcare services for optimal patient-centred outcomes in the management of the conditions covered in this unit.
4. Recognise the limitations of your medical knowledge, and how this relates to scope of practice, patient safety and their role within the broader health care team.
5. Apply knowledge of normal gastrointestinal and genitourinary anatomy and physiology to describe the structure and function as well as common abnormalities and significant acute or chronic pathologies associated with these two systems.
6. Analyse the common causes, clinical assessments, complications and outcomes associated with ear, nose and throat complications in both adult and paediatric patients
7. Apply knowledge of normal musculoskeletal and integumentary anatomy and physiology to describe the structure and function as well as common abnormalities and significant acute or chronic pathologies associated with these two systems.
8. Apply knowledge of common chronic condition as well as common abnormalities and significant acute or pathologies associated with these conditions.
9. Formulate appropriate pharmacotherapeutic regimes using the relevant drugs available in community paramedicine in the management of acute or chronic conditions including appropriate use of antibiotics, non-opioid analgesics, anti-inflammatories and antipyretic drugs.

Workload

You will be expected to complete at least 12 hours of distance education directed learning and a minimum of 12 hours of private study and self-directed learning per week.

Student experience, not official rules. Nothing here changes what the Handbook says.