Mount Sinai Health System Receives FCC Grant for Telehealth Medicine to Care for Pediatric Patients
$860,000 Will Provide Devices With App Allowing Patients to Report Well-Being Metrics
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has awarded $860,000 to Mount Sinai Kravis Children’s Hospital to support telehealth services during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The grant will enable Mount Sinai to provide more than 700 devices to children and their families who require telehealth monitoring and care, on a rotating basis. This scaling up of telehealth will be facilitated through partnerships with PadInMotion, the provider of the devices, and RealTime Clinic, which will provide an app-based integrated option for care.
“Mount Sinai Kravis Children’s Hospital has been at the very center of the pandemic and has provided care to many thousands of patients, including children, with COVID-19. As our clinicians prepare to welcome back families who may have delayed routine care, we are also quite mindful of our pediatric patients with compromised immune systems or other chronic illnesses who require ongoing follow-up in their homes. This grant will remove any obstacles that might prevent these vulnerable children from telehealth care; many families in our community cannot access remote treatment and monitoring options because they don’t have devices or they lack broadband access,” says Eyal Shemesh, MD, Professor of Pediatrics, and Psychiatry, at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and Chief of the Division of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics, who initiated outreach to the FCC for grant support.
“Through the RealTime Clinic app, we will be able to take telehealth one step further and integrate patient reported outcomes that give us a window into well-being. In light of the enormous stress and uncertainty associated with the pandemic, this will be a valuable asset in our patient care,” adds Dr. Shemesh.
“Mount Sinai is fortunate to have outstanding clinicians in the field of pediatrics and this funding from the FCC will allow us to put their clinical expertise and our advanced technology in the hands of our most vulnerable patients,” says Bruce Darrow, MD, PhD, Senior Vice President, Information Technology, and Deputy Chief Information Officer of the Mount Sinai Health System.
The funding is part of the recently enacted CARES Act, which appropriated $200 million to the FCC to support health care providers using telehealth during this national emergency.
About the Mount Sinai Health System
Mount Sinai Health System is one of the largest academic medical systems in the New York metro area, with more than 43,000 employees working across eight hospitals, over 400 outpatient practices, nearly 300 labs, a school of nursing, and a leading school of medicine and graduate education. Mount Sinai advances health for all people, everywhere, by taking on the most complex health care challenges of our time — discovering and applying new scientific learning and knowledge; developing safer, more effective treatments; educating the next generation of medical leaders and innovators; and supporting local communities by delivering high-quality care to all who need it.
Through the integration of its hospitals, labs, and schools, Mount Sinai offers comprehensive health care solutions from birth through geriatrics, leveraging innovative approaches such as artificial intelligence and informatics while keeping patients’ medical and emotional needs at the center of all treatment. The Health System includes approximately 7,300 primary and specialty care physicians; 13 joint-venture outpatient surgery centers throughout the five boroughs of New York City, Westchester, Long Island, and Florida; and more than 30 affiliated community health centers. We are consistently ranked by U.S. News & World Report's Best Hospitals, receiving high "Honor Roll" status, and are highly ranked: No. 1 in Geriatrics and top 20 in Cardiology/Heart Surgery, Diabetes/Endocrinology, Gastroenterology/GI Surgery, Neurology/Neurosurgery, Orthopedics, Pulmonology/Lung Surgery, Rehabilitation, and Urology. New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai is ranked No. 12 in Ophthalmology. U.S. News & World Report’s “Best Children’s Hospitals” ranks Mount Sinai Kravis Children's Hospital among the country’s best in several pediatric specialties.
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