Next time you call 911 in Monroe County, you should be met with more specific help.

That's the goal of the new Rochester/Monroe County Nurse Navigation program.

The program aims to help people with non-life threatening issues. This way, emergency response personnel and emergency rooms are more focused on life-threatening injuries.

For instance, calls about a sore throat or wrist injury would be routed to a nurse. A nurse can evaluate the caller's needs and connect them with more appropriate care, instead of sending an ambulance.

“Nurse Navigation is proven to work in other cities and one of our primary roles is to provide our citizens with high-quality municipal government services,” Mayor Malik Evans said in a statement. “This project is an excellent example of a public-private collaboration that will improve quality of life. It delivers an innovative solution to some of the issues we’re seeing around staffing shortages and emergency room overcrowding. I’m grateful to County Executive Bello, AMR and all of our community’s first responders, telecommunicators, dispatchers and healthcare providers for their contributions in keeping Rochester’s citizens safe and healthy.”

“The Nurse Navigation Program will modernize our community’s emergency medical response and help alleviate the strain on local ambulance crews and hospitals at a time when COVID-19 continues to spread,” Monroe County Executive Adam Bello said in a statement. “Thank you to all our first responders who work tirelessly to help our residents.”

The county hopes the program limits people from relying on hospital emergency departments for primary health care, while still giving them timely and quality care.