Recognition to Practical and Conceptual Solutions Special Issue Concept Contemporary paramedicine encompasses a broad and evolving scope of practice extending well beyond the traditional perception of emergency ambulance response to acute, life‑threatening incidents. While urgent and emergency care remains integral to the profession, paramedics now routinely deliver both scheduled and unscheduled care across the full spectrum of acuity and complexity. Clinical encounters may be of low acuity but high complexity, or conversely high acuity with straightforward resolution, requiring nuanced assessment, decision‑making, and collaborative intervention. Paramedics operate within and across diverse healthcare environments, including ambulance services, primary and community care, aged care, urgent care centres, hospital emergency departments, outreach services, rural and remote health facilities, and multidisciplinary teams. This breadth of practice provides opportunities to collaborate with community partners and to engage directly with populations experiencing the most significant barriers to equitable healthcare access and outcomes. Health inequities within and beyond paramedicine are well documented. These inequities are often driven by the social determinants of health, structural inequities, and systemic biases. However, this special issue moves deliberately beyond simply documenting inequity to focus on solutions, both practical and conceptual, that can drive meaningful change. The emphasis is on identifying, analysing, and disseminating innovative, scalable, and evidence‑informed strategies that promote equity across the continuum of paramedic care. Submissions may include evaluations of interventions and programs that work, as well as conceptual frameworks, theories, and analytical scholarly perspectives that inform action toward equity. 1|Page
• Critically examine equity‑focused innovations and evaluate their outcomes or potential impact. • Advance scholarly discourse on practical and conceptual solutions addressing disparities in access, experience, and health outcomes. • Promote culturally safe, socially responsive, and inclusive models of care within diverse contexts. • Influence policy, education, and service delivery to embed equity as a foundational principle of paramedic practice. Scope and Preferred Themes Submissions should be solutions‑oriented and grounded in the practice, systems, and scholarship of paramedicine. We seek contributions from all areas of paramedic practice, including clinical care in ambulance services, community paramedicine, primary healthcare, regional and remote care, education and training, research, workforce, and policy. • Innovative service delivery models that demonstrably improve access for underserved populations. • Culturally safe and co‑designed interventions with Indigenous, migrant, or culturally diverse communities. • Strategies for addressing social determinants of health through integrated and multi-disciplinary approaches. • Workforce recruitment, retention, and professional development initiatives that enhance diversity and equity. • System‑level and policy reforms that institutionalise equity‑oriented practice. • Use of data and analytics to identify inequities and inform targeted interventions. • Evaluation, implementation, and scale‑up of interventions with demonstrated or potential equity impacts. • Conceptual or theoretical frameworks that inform equity‑driven practice, policy, or education in paramedicine. 2|Page
The intent for this special issue is explicitly solutions‑driven. While inequities in paramedicine are well recognised, the purpose of this issue is to showcase and strengthen the profession’s capacity to respond. We prefer submissions that go beyond only describing the existence or scope of inequities, and will prioritise contributions that highlight how paramedicine can act, whether through practical interventions, policy innovation, workforce development, education, or conceptual advancement. Submissions may include empirical studies, program evaluations, or analyses of interventions that have been implemented or are emerging. Equally valued are scholarly, conceptual, or theoretical works that propose new ways of understanding or addressing inequity, or that offer frameworks for guiding future action. Authors are encouraged to include reflections on transferability, scalability, and implications for broader system change. Timelines Submissions open: 20 January 2026 Submissions close: 30 September 2026 Accepted submissions will be published early-online, and the special issue releases in early 2027. 3|Page
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