From The Seattle Times article, "How Seattle’s 911 ambulance system, nurse line stack up," by Daniel Beekman:
Many cities, like Seattle, have added 911 nurse lines in recent years to divert low-level patients away from crowded hospitals. But some have equipped their systems with more protections against extreme delays, like the 10 hours a woman named Pamela Hogan waited for a nurse-ordered ambulance in 2022.
“When we call our local Fire Department, we don’t expect to be passed off to a multibillion-dollar corporation without public oversight or transparency,” said Emily Brice, co-executive director of Northwest Health Law Advocates.
AMR’s nurses are located at a call center in Texas. They order ambulances for most patients they triage: more than 4,600 last year. And Seattle officials have excluded the nurse-ordered ambulances from the city’s time standards, giving the company more operational flexibility and shielding it from late penalties, experts say.