DC nurses now handling less urgent 911 medical calls

By EMS1 Staff

WASHINGTON — A new program was recently launched that redirects less urgent 911 medical calls to nurses in an effort to reduce the strain on emergency services.

NBC Washington reported that the “Right Care, Right Now” program is a result of dispatchers spending a lot of time on calls that are not as urgent as others, according to D.C. Fire and EMS Chief Gregory Dean.

Chief Dean said that out of the daily 500 911 calls that are received, around 200 of them could be redirected to free up more time for responders to handle more urgent calls.

“When we start this, we are going to start up slow,” Chief Dean said. “We will do about 65 calls per day, and then in about six months, we will double that to about 130 calls per day. Then, six months later, we will make a decision to let all the calls that qualify for nurse triage to go to nurse triage.”

The nurses in the program are part of an AMR team, and they are able to provide callers with a list of healthcare providers, schedule appointments and arrange same-day transportation for Medicaid members.

“FEMS has been seeking innovative solutions to address the resource strain posed by the largest per capita call volume for EMS in the nation,” AMR said in a statement. “This need, coupled with AMR’s unique capabilities, is providing an opportunity to expand access to health care, improve patient experience and increase population health.”

https://twitter.com/dcfireems/status/978425963976581120