The FDNY’s EMS division would no longer play a role in the B-HEARD program under a redesign advanced by Mayor Eric Adams’ administration.
By Maya Kaufman | November 15, 2025
NEW YORK — Mayor Eric Adams is moving to significantly reshape a city program that sends health care workers to respond to some mental health emergencies, weeks before he leaves office.
The program, which is known as B-HEARD, will assemble three-person teams of nurses, social workers and ambulance drivers to handle nonviolent, mental health-related 911 calls under the new model announced Friday. Teams were previously staffed by two EMS workers from the New York City Fire Department and one social worker from NYC Health + Hospitals.
City officials said the redesign will enable B-HEARD to expand more quickly because it will sidestep the recruitment and retention issues that plague FDNY’s EMS division. The new model will also improve the city’s increasingly long emergency response times by freeing up some FDNY ambulances and EMTs, officials said.
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