Mobile Medicine in Rural Areas

Technologist Jonathon Feit has often said that the greatest innovations serving Mobile Medicine (Fire & EMS) come from rural spaces. The most obviously reason, perhaps, is that agencies have fewer resources to begin with, and it takes longer for their neighbors to arrive on-scene, therefore they have no choice but to learn how to do more for themselves. This has always been the hallmark of those who live and work where the wild spirit of self-reliance abides. But there is something else, too: big skies, clean air, and the ability to better afford life and spend less time in traffic tend to attract those who need to be able to afford aspects of life that would be impossible where the norm is sitting in traffic going back-and-forth from long hours in an office: for example, the time to care for a child or parent who is seriously ill or disabled and need more regular attention. For this reason, while they have fewer available resources that most cities, countrysides tend to attract a higher concentration of people who themselves — or whose parents or children — are more likely to need emergency healthcare. That sets up a Catch-22 and an important risk of health inequity that rural Mobile Medical agencies navigate around the clock. Reuben Farnsworth, who spearheaded Community Paramedicine, ET3, and other specialty care programs at Colorado’s Delta County Ambulance District — an agency that has won statewide honors, including as the first ambulance service to interoperate with the Quality Health Network health information exchange and local hospitals — will explain how a data — and economics-centric management style has powered his service’s success, from clinical medicine, to education and policy development, to advancing legislative priorities with partners.