Detroit Fire Department outlines nurse-navigation plan to divert nonemergency 911 calls

The Detroit Fire Department told the City Council Public Health & Safety committee on June 16 that it plans to pilot a nurse-navigation program to screen and divert low-priority medical 911 calls to nurses who can provide triage, referrals and scheduled transport, rather than dispatching ambulances for nonemergency requests.

Deputy Commissioner Derek Hellman said about 25% of the department’s roughly 150,000 annual 911 requests are low priority. Under the proposed model, dispatchers would transfer lower-priority calls to a nurse who would assess whether callers need immediate emergency response, telehealth, urgent care scheduling, medication delivery or a scheduled transport to a health-care facility. If the call is a true emergency, the nurse would route it back to 911 for immediate ambulance response.

Hellman described vendor selection and an implementation timeline: a vendor-of-choice decision in Q3, contract negotiation in Q4, a pilot beginning in January and a phased rollout with monitoring through the following spring. He told the committee the program has been used elsewhere (examples cited included Washington, D.C., Seattle and parts of Georgia) and could reduce costs, lessen crew fatigue and improve response availability for high-priority calls.

Members asked operational questions: how language translation would be handled, whether the program would coordinate with the health department’s existing ride services for expectant mothers, and what telehealth integrations would look like. Hellman said vendors under consideration offer phone-based translation for up to 200 languages and have telehealth capabilities. Council member Mary Waters expressed support and asked for vendor details when available.

No vote occurred; the department said it would return with vendor information and further details as procurement advances.