New York-Presbyterian Healthcare System is stepping up its telemedicine and telehealth game in a big way. The New York City organization has launched NYP OnDemand, a four-pronged digital health strategy meant to provide a broad range of online offerings to patients and to expand the NYP brand.
“We wanted to provide a comprehensive suite of telehealth services,” explained Chief Innovation Officer Dr. Peter Fleischut.
“It’s really a new approach,” Fleischut continued. “Where we think is the key differentiator is the comprehensive nature of this.”
Prior to the launch of NYP OnDemand, New York-Presbyterian had telestroke coverage in two of its nine hospitals. Now, it has so much more in the world of telehalth, and additional services are in the works.
There are four major components to NYP OnDemand:
Digital second opinions: Second opinions are available to anyone in the U.S. for a one-time fee of $800. Fleischut said this is to save people the expense of traveling to New York City to get a second opinion in person. Care coordination and remote consultation startup Grand Rounds provides the technology for this service, while ColumbiaDoctors and Weill Cornell Medicine — the faculty practices of and Columbia University Medical Center and Weill Cornell Medical College, respectively — supply the physicians.
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
“As a second phase, we will be offering it in select markets internationally,” Fleischut added.
Inter-hospital consultations: These involve video chats between referring physician and remote specialist, usually with the patient present. There is no fee for inter-hospital consults, though this is restricted to patients already in the NYP system, according to Fleischut.
Telestroke care falls under this category. In the next several months, expect NYP OnDemand to add remote consultations in behavioral health and pediatrics as well.
Remote emergency/urgent care: In emergency care, NYP has a pilot underway at Weill Cornell to offer virtual visits to reduce waiting times in the emergency department for low-acuity patients after initial triage. This can be billed to insurance.
“Coming in August, we will be providing virtual urgent care to patients in New York state,” on a pay-per-use basis, via phone or video, Fleischut said. The latter service is part of a partnership with telehealth company American Well.
Online follow-up care for services such as wound care and post-surgical checkups: “The program is really to improve access to care and improve quality,” Fleischut said.
Digital follow-up care is covered by global payments for many surgical procedures and inpatient admissions, Fleischut said. “It’s more for patient convenience,” he explained.
Here’s a video from New York-Presbyterian about NYP OnDemand:
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
