Columbus is changing how it handles 911 medical calls, steering some callers away from ambulances and toward a nurse instead. City officials say the shift is meant to keep firefighters and paramedics free for true emergencies like heart attacks, strokes, serious crashes and fires, rather than tying up crews on calls that don't need an ambulance at all.
Mayor Andrew Ginther said callers meeting specific clinical criteria may now be connected directly with a nurse rather than automatically getting a medic unit dispatched to their door, according to WSYX. The city has expanded its Nurse Health Care Navigation Line citywide after testing it, and the outlet reports that Columbus reported more than half of all 911 calls made in 2024 did not require EMS on scene. The nurse line connects eligible callers with non-emergency medical care rather than dispatching first responders for issues that don't rise to a true emergency.
Why Columbus Fire Needed a Different Approach
The numbers behind the shift are striking. The Columbus Division of Fire responded to nearly 145,000 emergency medical calls in 2024, but city data showed 65% of those calls resulted in no medical treatment being provided on scene, and only 55% of the patients who were treated ended up needing transport to an emergency room, according to the City of Columbus. The division operates 34 fire stations covering roughly a million residents across metro Columbus, a footprint stretched thin by call volume that keeps climbing.
That strain became visible in a very public way this year. In May, the Columbus Division of Fire graduated 23 new paramedics to help bolster the workforce, even as staffing shortages forced temporary station brownouts — including a four-hour closure at Fire Station 26 on the city's far west side on Mother's Day, as reported by WBNS-TV. U.S. Census data cited by the station showed Columbus's population climbed to about 938,000 residents in 2025, up 30,000 since 2020, while firefighter staffing grew from 1,536 in 2021 to 1,716 in 2025 — growth that Columbus Firefighters Local 67 has repeatedly warned isn't keeping pace with call volume.
How the City Chose Its Vendor
Columbus began searching for a 911 medical triage partner in June 2025, a process that led the Columbus City Council to formally approve a contract with vendor Crosswalk, Inc. on February 9. An evaluation committee that included representatives from the firefighters' union, the 911 center and the Department of Technology recommended Crosswalk for the job, per the city's account. Dr. Robert Lowe, the Columbus Division of Fire's medical director, said Crosswalk received no upfront payment for the arrangement, while the city has incurred its own expenses for establishing the program, building local protocols and setting up dispatch-software resources.
Lowe said the goal of steering low-acuity callers to nurse navigators is to reduce patients' financial burdens and shorten the time it takes them to connect with the right kind of care. Eligible callers can be directed toward urgent care, primary care, telehealth, pharmacy services or behavioral health support instead of an ambulance ride and an emergency room bill they may not have needed.
What Happened When Indianapolis Tried It First
Columbus isn't the first city to lean on Crosswalk. The vendor's flagship “Crosswalk to Care” initiative launched in Indianapolis in June 2025, and early program data there showed that roughly 60% of screened low-acuity 911 calls did not actually require an ambulance response, according to EMS1. Terre Haute became the third Indiana city to join Crosswalk's network in April 2026. During Indianapolis's initial rollout, EMS routed between 10 and 15 non-emergency calls per day to nurse navigators out of more than 130,000 annual 911 requests, per WTHR, in a system that fields more than 400 calls a day overall.
Peer-reviewed research backs up the broader concept. A National Association of EMS Physicians study found that half of low-acuity callers transferred to nurses avoided an emergency department transport altogether, while only 2.9% of those calls needed to be re-escalated for an emergency ALS response, according to research published by Taylor & Francis. Built-in safeguards are meant to catch the cases that do need an ambulance: standard nurse navigation protocols require that if a nurse identifies worsening symptoms, or if a caller asks for an ambulance at any point, the call gets routed straight back to standard 911 dispatch. Participation in the nurse line is voluntary for callers who qualify.
A City With a History of Rethinking 911
The nurse navigation program isn't Columbus's first attempt at rewriting the rules of emergency medicine. The Columbus Division of Fire partnered with The Ohio State University Medical Center in 1969 to deploy the nation's first mobile coronary care unit, nicknamed the Heartmobile that reshaped 911, which proved advanced cardiac care could begin in the field before a patient ever reached a hospital. City officials frame the current push as a continuation of that legacy, this time aimed at preserving ambulance capacity rather than expanding what an ambulance can do on scene.
WSYX reports that early tests of Columbus's program showed promise before the citywide expansion moved forward. Whether the diversion effort meaningfully eases the staffing pressure documented by Local 67, or simply buys time until hiring catches up with the city's growth, remains an open question — one likely to be shaped by how many callers actually qualify for the nurse line once it runs at full scale.
