Today, I'm so proud to announce that another Health One unit
is going to be ready and put into service.
There were so many calls for crisis intervention when one of the only tools
we had was to have police respond to that call when they came into the 911.
And police had such few remedies, they could either take a person to jail
or take them to Harborview Hospital, when sometimes we needed a different approach.
And so we created Health One to really have that kind of approach
that's behavioral science based, and a medic, and a social worker come.
And they can spend as much time as they want to determine
what is the right solution for that incident.
They're really solving problems on scene, and that's really important for us.
Sometimes people need a meal.
Our team knows how to set up a meal delivery plan.
Sometimes they need their prescriptions filled.
Sometimes they need to reconnect with their care providers.
Sometimes they need an appointment set up for the next couple of days.
70% of the time, those are the problems that they're solving on scene.
If you want to run to the hospital
is not appropriate and leaving the person is not appropriate...
You just don't feel good with either option, and I've driven away from them.
That's almost every run on this route.
I would tell you the case manager is what make this special because
they do the caring for the next 90% of
what this person needs and we just facilitate them.
And it's a great partnership. It's just a longer timeline.
I'm not going to fix anyone in a week, but in the longer timeline,
we start moving the needle with people and getting them where they need to be.
I'll tell you one thing, if you give the firefighters a lever
and it doesn't work, they'll never pull it.
They keep pulling this lever because it works.
Mental illness doesn't take a break.
It doesn't really care about COVID, neither does drug addiction
and homelessness. It's all three together.
We are actually connecting those people more where they need to go.
I did nine months on this vehicle.
I went back to my ladder truck
and I've signed up for another six to nine months because I believe in this.