The Windsor Police Service and Windsor Regional Hospital will continue their partnership to reduce wait times in the emergency department.
In January 2023, they launched a pilot project to place a police officer in the emergency department allowing officers on the street to transfer care of people they bring in. Since the launch of the program, officer transfer times at Windsor Regional Hospital are averaging just 22 minutes down from approximately 3 to 11 hours.
“The impact of this partnership has been beneficial to our community in multiple ways. This really is a ‘made-in-Windsor’ solution, but we have received enquiries from other police services and hospitals across the province who are looking at these strategies as potential models to examine and possibly implement in their own cities,” said Police Chief Jason Bellaire.
The program has now been extended for the second time.
A second pilot project, the Nurse Police Teams are also experiencing success. The team focuses on individuals struggling with substance use to reduce visits to the emergency department. Over the last 11 weeks, the team has seen around 283 people on the streets.
“We have been able to determine that the individuals being seen by the NPT program have reduced their use of the Windsor Regional Hospital Ouellette Campus emergency department by 30% since they were seen by NPT as compared to the number of their visits before the program started,” said Kristen Scott, Director, Emergency Services.
The NPT operate Friday to Sunday from 1 p.m. to 1 a.m. WPS and WRH are looking to expand NPT to other times and areas of need.