Northwell Health has opened an emergency telepsychiatry hub to provide remote, around-the-clock consultations for mental health patients in crisis coming to the health system's emergency departments throughout New York City, Long Island and Westchester County.
The health system will offer secure, online videoconferencing that connects patients with psychiatrists where and when they need them most. Located at Northwell's Lenox Health Greenwich Village in Manhattan, the new 770-square-foot telepsychiatry center features nine video-equipped workstations staffed by members of a 35-employee team that includes 23 psychiatrists and nine master's-level behavioral health clinicians.
Northwell noted that having this telehealth resource in place has already resulted in a 90 percent decrease in wait times for ED patients who need to see a psychiatrist – to an average of 45 minutes. The need for telepsychiatry services is especially great in the evenings and early-morning hours when psychiatry staff at most hospitals have gone home.
Since Northwell began using telepsychiatry several years ago, the health system has performed approximately 11,000 remote consultations from its EDs, including 3,800 in 2018. With the new emergency telepsychiatry hub, the program is projected to handle 5,000 consultations this year. The program also provides transfer and admitting services, resulting in expedited access to inpatient psychiatry beds and reducing the number of patients being held in emergency departments.
"At a time when the American healthcare system is facing a shortage of psychiatrists and mental health services, telepsychiatry underscores Northwell's commitment to increasing access to care and improving outcomes for our patients," said Jonathan Merson, M.D., medical director of Northwell's emergency telepsychiatry hub program in a statement. "It's a technology that has no boundaries and the goal is simple: No patient experiencing a behavioral health emergency should have to wait to be seen."
The hub is connected to 15 Northwell-run emergency departments throughout the region.
Northwell says it was the first health system in the New York area to offer 24-hour remote monitoring of critical-care patients in intensive care units by specialized physicians and nurses. Over the past several years, it has instituted a telestroke program where stroke neurologists are remotely consulted to access patients who are presenting with signs and symptoms of a stroke. The technology is also being used in the health system's skilled-nursing facilities to diagnose patients remotely, reducing the need for hospitalizations. In the future, the pediatric critical care team at Cohen Children's Medical Center will be available for telehealth consultations with children being treated at other Northwell hospitals.
