A new telehealth initiative run by the Mount Sinai Health System allows patients and their primary care physicians to hold “virtual” appointments or videoconferences for nonurgent follow-up visits. Designed to improve care and enhance convenience, the program can be accessed through an iPhone or Android smartphone app. It is expected to be particularly beneficial for patients with chronic illnesses who require medical management, or those with nonurgent infections—an upper respiratory illness, for example—who require follow-up care.

“We would like to offer another access point for our patients to communicate with their primary care providers,” says Aida Vega, MD, Associate Professor of Medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and Director, Primary Care Associates at Mount Sinai. “Videoconferencing can be as effective as a face-to-face consultation.”

A patient with diabetes who cannot travel to an in-office visit due to transportation, weather-related, or child-care constraints, for example, can receive regular blood pressure and blood sugar monitoring and get medication adjustments accordingly, in real-time, says Dr. Vega.

“Technology has evolved to a point where it is less of a novelty in our doctors’ offices and more of an essential part of our physicians’ toolkits—and indeed, an everyday part of our patients’ lives,” says Kumar Chatani, Executive Vice President and Chief Information Officer for Mount Sinai Health System. “The time has come for telehealth to move to the next level by putting it into wider practice, and we’re proud to have done that here at Mount Sinai.”

The program officially launched in December with seven primary care physicians from Mount Sinai Doctors Faculty Practice. By the end of this year, all of Mount Sinai’s primary care physicians will be up and running within the telehealth program.

Patients may join the program by calling their physician’s office, or online through their Mount Sinai MyChart account. MyChart provides patients with the ability to securely access their medical records and tests, communicate with their doctors, request prescription renewals, and check upcoming appointments.

The Mount Sinai Health System runs other telehealth initiatives, including one used by the Developmental Disabilities Center at Mount Sinai Roosevelt, which works with 19 group homes in the New York region for adults and children with autism, epilepsy, and cerebral palsy. At one of the homes, The Center for Discovery in Monticello, New York, “the parents and patients love it because they don’t have to travel to New York City,” says Patricia McGoldrick, NP, MPA, Associate Director of the Developmental Disabilities Center.

Says Steven Wolf, MD, Director of Pediatric Epilepsy at the Mount Sinai Health System and Director of the Developmental Disabilities Center at Mount Sinai Roosevelt: “The beauty of telehealth is that we can provide that same high level of comprehensive care in Monticello, two-and-a-half hours north, as we do in New York City.”

Another of Mount Sinai’s telehealth programs enables Emergency Department workers at Mount Sinai Queens to consult in real-time, via videoconferencing, with a stroke-team provider at The Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan. Nationally, telestroke programs are becoming more widely used. They have shown promise in improving acute stroke treatment, including increasing rates of effective delivery of the vital clot-busting drug tPA in centers lacking on-site stroke care resources.

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