WICHITA, Kan. (KSNW) – The Wichita Fire Department says it needs to do something different in the way it responds to medical calls because the current system is putting a strain on already tight resources.

They did a study and found out that in 2014, 80 percent of the calls that were sent to the fire department were medical and about 38 percent of their total calls were non-emergency.

They aren’t alone. Across the country, over the past decade, many departments have seen a large rise in how many medical calls they’ve received while numbers for fires and other emergencies generally stayed flat.

In response to those statistics, the Wichita Fire Department decided to see what other departments across the country are doing.

Earlier this year, they decided to move forward with a pilot program after two years of research with Wichita State’s Public Policy and Management Center.

The move would send small SUVs, not fire trucks, to some medical calls.

“They’re not going to respond to the house fires, they’re not going to respond to the car wrecks. They will be EMTs who are in some sort of SUV that can respond to the low acuity calls only,” said Fire Marshal Brad Crisp.

Low acuity calls are medical calls that aren’t necessarily emergencies—they don’t require immediate medical attention and could probably be resolved with a trip to a primary care physician.

The first station to roll out this change will be Fire Station One, in downtown Wichita. As these graphics show, the station receives the most medical calls of any Wichita fire station and over the past decade the calls have increased drastically. The darker red indicates more than 1,000 calls a year in a square mile. (Story continues below graphics)

As the need for fire trucks to respond grows, it leads to fewer trucks being available to respond to true emergencies, ultimately bouncing the call over to another station that would be farther away.

“It’s gonna be a delayed response,” said Capt. Joshua Pavelski with Station One. “It’s not gonna be what they’re used to if they’ve called before because the other stations are going to be a little bit further away.”

Crisp says they’re planning to get public input in the coming weeks, holding meetings in October with district advisory boards and neighborhood associations to explain what’s going on, why it’s happening, and get any suggestion.

The official rollout at Fire Station One will begin after the new year and be in place for at least a year before any permanent changes are put in place across the city.