Phelps Hospital launches street medicine program to bring care to the homeless
Officials say the initiative is a part of their award-winning paramedicine program.
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A life-saving program at a Westchester hospital in Sleepy Hollow is expanding by bringing critical care straight to people who need it most.
Dr. Michelle Espinoza says Phelps Hospital's paramedicine program has been helping save lives since 2024.
"It's a partnership that we've done with the Ossining Volunteer Ambulance Corp to be able to extend our physician resources, and the resources that we have in the hospital, over out into our communities," Espinoza says.
Espinoza says the program is now expanding with the launch of a new street medicine outreach initiative that is designed to bring care directly to people who are homeless.
"What we're bringing to them is Point of Care testing, seeing and checking their blood pressures, connecting them to any other medical resources that they may need," Espinoza says.
Hospital officials say they hope to begin their outreach sometime this summer.
"We're partnering with shelters, those that are actually places where those who are unhoused are actually at. We're partnering with them. We're meeting them, and we're introducing ourselves to the program," Espinoza says.
Kathleen Izzo, a paramedic coordinator with Ossining EMS, says this could improve health outcomes for a population that often has difficulty accessing care.
"It could be something that is a medical problem, it could be a psychological challenge... It could just also be that people are not always educated on what's available to them, so I think this program is going to change a lot of that," Izzo says.
Espinoza says the donor-funded program was ultimately created to bring doctors, social workers, and paramedics directly to people in need.
"Together, we're going to try to address this, and see how we can move forward and really elevate the care of those who are unhoused," Espinoza says.
