Idaho’s emergency medical services system is pursuing federal funding to expand a specialized workforce that addresses chronic health conditions and frequent emergency calls before they escalate into costly hospital visits. Community paramedics—credentialed EMS providers who focus on preventive care rather than emergency response—currently operate in only a handful of Idaho agencies, but state leaders want to place at least one in every county that lacks one.
Dave Walls has worked as a community paramedic in Ada County for almost three years, a role that looks vastly different from traditional ambulance work. Instead of responding to 911 calls, Walls drives a branded GMC Yukon to patients’ homes, conducting lab draws, helping navigate the health care system, arranging medical transportation, and assessing home safety hazards. The goal is straightforward: manage chronic conditions and reduce the cascade of preventable emergency department visits that strain both patients and the health system.
A Model for Reducing Non-Urgent Emergency Visits
Research underscores the opportunity. A 2013 study cited by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that more than one-third of emergency department visits involve non-urgent conditions—cases that community paramedics are positioned to handle. Some frequent callers dial 911 six, eight, or even ten times within just a couple of months, often for manageable chronic issues rather than true emergencies.
Community paramedic programs target these patterns by visiting frequent ambulance users and recently discharged hospital patients, providing services designed to prevent readmission and reduce unnecessary emergency room traffic. The approach has proven sustainable in Ada County, where the program has operated for more than a decade, and in the Magic Valley region, where a community health EMS program launched in 2019 and now covers Twin Falls, Jerome, and Gooding counties.
State Seeks Seed Funding for Statewide Expansion
Wayne Denny, Idaho’s Bureau of Emergency Medical Services leader, is actively seeking federal grant funding through the One Big Beautiful Bill Act to support rural health care access and expand the model across the state. The funding would serve as seed money to help build out the infrastructure needed to launch community paramedic programs in counties currently without them.
“This very possibly will kind of serve as that seed money that we were going to need to start getting the system built out,” Denny said, according to reporting from the Idaho Capital Sun.
The timing reflects broader pressures on Idaho’s EMS system. The state is experiencing a shortage of emergency medical services providers amid ongoing funding struggles. Community paramedic programs offer a way to make more efficient use of existing EMS talent and redirect lower-acuity calls away from the ambulance system, freeing traditional paramedics to focus on genuine emergencies.
How Community Paramedics Address Gaps in Care
The work requires a different skill set than emergency response. Mark Babson, another Ada County paramedic, represents the growing cohort of providers shifting into community-focused roles. These professionals use their clinical training not to treat acute crises but to identify patterns, coordinate care, and address social determinants of health—housing stability, medication management, and transportation access—that drive frequent emergency use.
One community paramedic describes the insight driving the model: recognizing that traditional emergency response alone cannot solve the underlying health and social challenges that prompt repeated 911 calls. “As a paramedic, I knew … there’s something more going on here, right?” the provider said, according to the Idaho Capital Sun.
Only a handful of Idaho EMS agencies currently offer community health EMS work, leaving vast geographic gaps. Denny’s stated objective—placing at least one community health EMS provider in every Idaho county lacking one—would require both federal seed funding and sustained commitment from local EMS systems to hire and deploy staff in these roles.
What Comes Next
The outcome of Idaho’s federal grant application remains pending. If successful, the funding would begin the process of scaling what Ada County and the Magic Valley region have already demonstrated: that paramedics operating outside the traditional 911 system can reduce preventable hospitalizations, improve patient outcomes, and provide a more efficient use of EMS resources across rural and urban Idaho.