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Washington County to introduce EMS "Nurse Navigator" to triage nonurgent 911 calls
Summary
Health and Human Services staff presented a new EMS Nurse Navigator program planned to launch in late February to reduce nonurgent ambulance transports, improve patient routing and ease pressure on EMS and hospitals; AMR Northwest is covering first-year costs, presenters said.
Washington County commissioners heard a detailed presentation Feb. 25 on a new Emergency Medical Services (EMS) Nurse Navigator program intended to redirect nonurgent 911 callers to more appropriate care, presenters said.
The program, presented by Adrian Donner, program supervisor for Public Health with Washington County Health and Human Services, and Tim Case, program coordinator for the countys public health EMS program, is intended to add a secondary clinical screening step after 911 call-takers identify certain complaint types. That step would give callers alternatives such as self-care guidance, urgent-care or same-day clinic appointments, a telehealth visit, or a rideshare to an appointment when transportation is a barrier.
County officials said the change aims to reduce unnecessary ambulance dispatches and emergency-department visits, freeing EMS crews to respond to life-threatening calls. Donner told the board that local data from February 2024 showed about 45,000 calls that were not immediately life-threatening and could benefit from alternatives to ambulance transport.
Under the proposed workflow, 911 call-takers perform the usual triage. If a call falls into predetermined categories, the caller…
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