Mount Sinai Health System Receives FCC Grant for Telehealth Medicine to Care for Seniors at Risk of COVID-19
Federal Communications Commission Provides $312,500 Grant
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has awarded $312,500 to the Mount Sinai Health System to support telehealth services during the COVID-19 pandemic. The grant was one of six announced this week and the only one made to a New York City-based hospital system.
Mount Sinai will use the grant to support the Mount Sinai Visiting Doctors program, which was founded in 1995 to provide quality, compassionate health care to frail, elderly, or ailing adults who are unable to leave their homes. Considered a national model and a flagship clinical initiative, Mount Sinai Visiting Doctors is one of the largest academic home-based primary care programs in the nation. Its Director is Linda DeCherrie, MD.
“This grant recognizes the extraordinary work and innovation of our Mount Sinai Visiting Doctors program and Dr. DeCherrie’s leadership. During this pandemic, the safest place for frail, seriously ill older adults is their home. The technology supported by this grant will ensure that more older adults receive the care that they need and deserve while dramatically lowering their risk of contracting COVID-19,” says R. Sean Morrison, MD, the Ellen and Howard C. Katz Professor and Chair of the Brookdale Department of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine at Mount Sinai.
“Mount Sinai is fortunate to have outstanding clinicians in the fields of geriatrics and palliative care, 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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