Ontario Community Paramedicine

Community Paramedicine is available across every Ontario Health Team geography. Programs are operated by 56 of Ontario’s 57 land ambulance services, alongside six Indigenous Community Paramedicine providers.

Community paramedics support people with a wide range of needs, including older adults, people living with chronic conditions or frailty, palliative care patients, people without access to primary care, and those living in rural, remote or underserved communities.

Working as part of a person’s existing care team, community paramedics may provide health assessments, monitoring, point-of-care testing, care-plan support, health education, system navigation and connections to local services. They complement—not replace—primary care, home care and other community providers.

Community Paramedicine in Ontario began in 2014 with pilot projects that explored new ways for paramedics to support people beyond emergency response. These early programs demonstrated how paramedics could help people remain healthy, independent and connected to care in their own homes.

As Community Paramedicine grew, the OCPS was established in 2018 to provide provincial leadership and support.

The introduction of Community Paramedicine for Long-Term Care in 2020 marked another important step, helping older adults remain safely at home while waiting for—or potentially delaying the need for—long-term care.

Today, Community Paramedicine is an established part of Ontario’s health system. It brings proactive care closer to home, strengthens the capacity of local care teams and helps people receive the right care, in the right place, at the right time.