911 Emergency Triage

It is recognized that approximately 30 percent of 911 emergency requests could be more appropriately managed by non-urgent healthcare services over a traditional EMS transport. 911 emergency triage solutions have been successful in several markets for low acuity patients that are caught up in the EMS system, and do not require transport to an Emergency Department.
The key objective is to provide the low acuity patient with alternatives (e.g., nurse advice, urgent care or primary care visits) to the emergency department and assure adequate follow-up. Key benefits include:

• reducing over utilization of resources
• decreasing unnecessary overspend
• freeing-up high-level ALS resources for true emergency calls
• Improving patient experience when the right care is better matched to their needs

Large Metropolitan areas that have implemented a 911 Triage lines to address low-acuity calls to alternate destinations have seen:

• 8% increase in patient Self-Care or clinic Referral
• Less than 37 Min, avg. time for patients to arrive at clinics
• 60% Low acuity calls triaged as either self-care or referral to clinic
• 98% patient satisfaction