New York Includes Telehealth in New Puerto Rican Relief Effort

Government leaders and health systems are finding that a comprehensive disaster relief strategy includes telemental health services.

Over the weekend New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced a new program to help Puerto Rico recover from a series of earthquakes. Alongside structural assessment and construction experts, that plan includes a long-term mental health and telehealth program developed by the Greater New York Hospital Association and NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, a noted leader in connected health outreach.

"The people of Puerto Rico are suffering and they still need our help,” Cuomo said in a press release. “This deployment of mental health professionals and experts on the structural assessment team will help ensure the safety of our brothers and sisters in Puerto Rico and help them cope as they rebuild and restore their lives."

The relief effort isn’t new to New York, home to more than 1 million Puerto Ricans – the state with the largest such population. New York was one of several states to send help in 2017 to help the island recover from the devastating effects of Hurricane Maria. During that time NYP used its NYP OnDemand telemedicjne platform to connect its specialists with residents, the first time the service was used for disaster relief.

More recently, health and government officials have recognized the need to provide mental health services in both short- and long-term recovery efforts, particularly for children dealing with the after-effects of a disaster.

Last August, Florida officials opened more than 60 telehealth stations in schools across the state’s Panhandle region to help more than 35,000 students still feeling the emotional effects of Hurricane Michael, which had ripped through the region in 2018.

In the project announced over the weekend, New York is sending 26 bilingual mental health professionals from NYP and five other New York-based health systems – Montefiore Medical Center, Mount Sinai, Northwell Health, the Medysis Health Network and Catholic Health Services of Long Island – to work with the Puerto Rican Mental Health Agency.

In addition, NYP and the GNYHA will partner with the Center for Body-Mind Medicine to deploy as many as 15 mental health professionals to the island to help address the long-term impact on residents, including children.

That work is expected to include the development of a telemental health platform that would help residents – and the country’s struggling healthcare system – access care providers and specialists in the US when and wherever needed.