NY City Uses Telehealth to Curb ER Traffic, Improve Care Coordination

A city in New York is reducing emergency department traffic and improving time to treatment by deploying a telehealth program through its fire department.

The Schenectady Fire Department launched the mobile integrated health program in November, equipping EMS providers with tablets to connect with ED physicians employed by United Concierge Medicine during emergency calls. Through the connected health platform, the care team can treat the patient at home or recommend transport to an alternate site, such as an urgent care center, specialist or the patient’s primary care provider.

In the first month of use, the program saw 71 percent of 41 telehealth calls successfully treated at home.

“Hospital emergency rooms are often overcrowded with patients that may not need that level of care, and ambulances spending their time transporting those patients, rather than be at the ready for true emergencies,” Mayor Gary McCarthy said in a press release. “Overuse of ERs and ambulances results in delays to emergency care that reduces the quality and efficiency of the healthcare system. Through smart city technologies, our community is better positioned to be a progressive leader for future sustainable innovation. Most important, patients will reap the benefit of better, more efficient care.”

A city of roughly 66,000 located near Albany in eastern New York, Schenectady sees roughly 18,000 911 calls per year, officials said, with 12,000 related to medical emergencies. The MIH program could save the city and its 115-paramedic team millions of dollars a year in healthcare costs, as well as improving care outcomes for patients’ diverted from the ER.

Mobile integrated health programs, a collection of telehealth and mHealth services that include community paramedicine, are being deployed in communities across the country by healthcare systems, fire and EMS departments and public health programs eager to reduce ER congestion and the number of 911 calls that don’t need emergency treatment in a hospital. Many programs equip first responders with the telemedicine tools they need to conduct an initial evaluation and launch a virtual care visit with physicians at a local hospital or employed by the telehealth company.

These types of programs are especially popular as communities look to divert unnecessary ER traffic during the coronavirus pandemic and develop more care services at home.