911 Dispatchers Seek Help in Nurses

June 7, 2008 — -- Most people know that their best bet for emergency medical attention is to call 911.

But what about refilling your prescriptions or diagnosing that peculiar rash on your arm?

They are hardly emergencies, but that doesn't stop many residents in Houston, Tex., as well as other cities across the country, from calling 911.

"A lot of people who call 911 do so for a non-emergency," said Dr. David Persee, Houston's director of Emergency Medical Services. "As many as 40 percent of ambulances sent out following a call end up not even taking anyone to a hospital."

So Persee developed a system to combat the problem that he says is tying up ambulances that could be responding to real emergencies. It's called tele-nurse.

"The system will operate in a way that when someone calls 911 and the dispatcher is confident it's not an emergency, the caller will be transferred to a nurse," Persee said of the program that the City Council passed Wednesday.

"The tele-nurses will have time to ask a lot more questions, and sometimes they'll advise the patients over the phone and others will tell the caller that they should seek medical attention in the next 48 hours," Persee said. "Then they'll get the caller in touch with a clinic or health care provider."

Persee estimates that of the 750 calls the Houston EMS squad responds to each day, 500, or about 66 percent, are transported via ambulance and the remaining do not require additional care.

As the tele-nurse program begins in the coming weeks, Persee says only 20 of those calls will be handed over to nurses until they are sure the kinks in the system are ironed out.

The cost of an ambulance ride – and the subsequent visit to an emergency room – is another factor influencing Persee's initiative. An ambulance ride to an ER in Houston averages about $400, said Persee, not including additional costs for mileage and the hospital care.