Mount Sinai Uses Remote Patient Monitoring to Rapidly Respond to COVID-19
A new remote monitoring platform developed by the Mount Sinai Health System is helping health care providers to care for COVID-19 patients who are recovering at home. With the platform, providers can monitor the patients’ symptoms and adjust care as necessary, including sending the patient to the hospital if symptoms worsen.
The platform was originally developed for stroke patients by Christopher Kellner, MD, and David Putrino, PhD, Co-Directors of Mount Sinai’s Precision Recovery Platform. When the COVID-19 outbreak began, Drs. Kellner and Putrino quickly repurposed it to address the large number of patients with confirmed or suspected COVID-19 whose symptoms are not severe enough to need hospitalization.
The COVID-19 version of the platform launched early last week and has already enrolled hundreds of patients.
“Technology has a massive role to play in this major health care crisis,” said Dr. Kellner, an Assistant Professor of Neurosurgery at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and Director of the Intracerebral Hemorrhage Program. “And with remote monitoring of COVID-19, we can save hospital resources for the patients who need them most, but also quickly triage patients if and when they begin to show more severe symptoms while they are being monitored at home.”
Dr. Putrino, an Assistant Professor of Rehabilitation and Human Performance at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and Co-Director of the Abilities Research Center at Mount Sinai, said, “At the same time, we can also continue to provide vulnerable patients with excellent routine care, keep them out of the hospital, and shield them from additional exposure to the virus. We are saving lives.”
How Does It Work?
A patient can enroll in the program by a Mount Sinai Health System physician or the patient can text the words "Precision Recovery" to (332) 213-9130. A Mount Sinai provider from the Precision Recovery team will then contact them as soon as possible to establish an online video chat for on-boarding. As part of the on-boarding, the patient downloads a daily symptom tracking application, MyCap, which is completed via smart device to help the team track symptoms of the virus, such as body temperature, cough, breathing levels, and body aches. If a health care provider on the team sees concerning data during the home monitoring, the provider can enlist one of the Mount Sinai doctors on the team to have an online video chat with the patient. If necessary, they can organize an emergency medical team for mobilization.
The program has escalated a handful of patients to the hospital so far. According to Drs. Kellner and Putrino, Precision Recovery has the capacity to help thousands more.
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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