CP@clinic program expands reach in Australia with new funding

The McMaster-developed Community Paramedicine at Clinic (CP@clinic) program is expanding its reach in Australia.

Sunraysia Community Health Services (SCHS) has secured $1.4 million (AUD) in funding across four years through the Commonwealth’s Innovative Models of Care Program. The funding is supporting the implementation, scale-up and evaluation of the program across the Australian state of Victoria.

Dr. Gina Agarwal, professor in the Department of Family Medicine at McMaster University and her team have led the development and evaluation of the CP@clinic program, which extends across Canada. In its first international adaptation, the program was piloted in Australia in collaboration SCHS and La Trobe University in 2022.

CP@clinic provides free drop-in community clinics led by paramedics, who undertake chronic disease screening, health education and onward referral using a structured protocol and purpose-built database. The model improves access to care, increases quality of life and reduces some of the pressure on the acute care system.

Agarwal, the Canada Research Chair in Vulnerable Individuals in Primary Care and McMaster Family Medicine Levitt Scholar, will support the implementation and evaluation of this project in collaboration with La Trobe University. Agarwal’s team will provide all the elements of the out-of-the-box CP@clinic program, including the SMART database, the customized training program, participant materials, research expertise, evaluation matrices and ongoing implementation coaching.

Agarwal plans to visit the implementation sites across Victoria in support of this research project.

“Our CP@clinic Program is the only robustly researched community paramedicine wellness clinic. In our national Canadian scale up, we saw similar outcomes as in the large community trial, and we anticipate that the impact in Australia will be significant, improving health and quality of life and reducing emergency calls and social isolation,” said Agarwal.

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