Alecka Miles
Doctorate
Doctorate Title: ‘Decentering’ the ambulance in Paramedicine: An exploration and consensus of key stakeholder expectations, enablers, and barriers to paramedic role legitimisation in primary health care contexts in Australia and New Zealand.
Doctorate Description: Paramedics in Australia and New Zealand are traditionally linked with the delivery of advanced life support (ALS), emergency care and transport within an ambulance service by responding to ‘000’ or ‘111’ calls. Paramedics are often seen as synonymous with ambulances and their associated organisations, frequently referred to as ‘ambos’ or ‘ambulance drivers’. They are perceived by members of the public and other health professionals as a clinician who plays an integral role in the health system providing out of hospital emergency medical care and ambulance transport during emergency situations and accidents. This may be true for most paramedics, however in Australia and New Zealand not all paramedics work for a jurisdictional ambulance service.
For the purpose of this project the context of primary health care is referring to provision essential non-emergency health care provided by paramedics. It has been argued that a steady increase in the sociocultural reliance on healthcare provided by ambulance services may have contributed to emergency department (ED) overcrowding, longer response times for emergency and urgency cases and delays to people needing more appropriate care in Australia and New Zealand. As a result, contemporary paramedic roles in primary health care have evolved to include provision of unscheduled care for non-acute illness, minor injuries, chronic disease management, preventative health initiatives, immunisations, health promotion, disaster management, health and safety services, injury prevention, medical standby at events and health screening.
This research will adopt a pragmatic worldview to explore the current and potential roles and the nature of work of paramedics in primary health care and the enablers and barriers to their health system implementation and integration in Australian and New Zealand.
By exploring the roles and work of paramedics in primary health care in Australia and New Zealand, greater understanding could be gained of the ways in which paramedics practice, possibly contributing to a shift from the historical definitions of paramedics that focus on where they practice rather than what they do. Exploring the roles and nature of paramedic work in primary health care in Australia and New Zealand and the facilitators and barriers to their praxis by corroborating with experts from government, non-government organisations, clinicians from paramedicine, nursing and medicine, and health professional academics through the Delphi phase may inform an understanding of the shifting needs of communities, healthcare, workforce supply, availability and allocation and the development of future roles for paramedics in primary health care in Australia and New Zealand.
Details:
Type: PhD
University: Western Sydney University
Primary Supervisor: Dr Paul Simpson
Category: Professional Development
Funding:
Start Date: 2021
End Date: 2026
Status: Ongoing
Thesis
Awaiting
Research Interests
Publications
Paramedic PhD is endorsed by:
