COURTESY
NORTHWELL
Northwell officials cut the ribbon
for the healthcare provider’s new Village Emergency
Telepsychiatry Hub. Michael Dowling, Northwell C.E.O. and president, is third
from right. Alex Hellinger, the director of Lenox Health Greenwich Village, is third from left.
The telepsychiatrist is in, at Northwell
BY GABE HERMAN
Mental-health “screening” is taking on new
meaning at Northwell’s Downtown standalone
emergency department.
Northwell Health opened its new Emergency
Telepsychiatry Hub on April 11 at Lenox Health
Greenwich Village, at Seventh Ave. between W.
12th and 13th Sts.
The telepsychiatry center is 770 square feet
and includes nine video-equipped workstations.
It will be used by a 35-person multidisciplinary
team, including psychiatrists, behavioral-health
clinicians and social workers.
The center will provide consultations remotely
through video chat any time of day. Treatment
will be provided for mental-health patients who
visit Northwell Health’s emergency departments
throughout the city, as well as Westchester County
and Long Island.
The hub will connect to a total of 16 Northwell
emergency departments, with Mather Hospital in
Port Jefferson, Long Island, to be added later this
year. Long Island Jewish Hospital in Queens will not
be part of the program since it has its own on-site,
around-the-clock psychiatry coverage.
Northwell has been running emergency telepsychiatry
services for the past several years, performing
roughly 11,000 emergency remote consultations,
including 3,800 last year alone. The service treats
patients of all ages, from young children to the elderly.
Along with consultations, the service can also provide
transfer and admitting services. This allows for
faster access to inpatient psychiatric beds and reduces
the number of patients being held in emergency
departments. About 40 percent of patients
end up needing admission to a psychiatric unit.
With the telepsychiatry program, patients visiting
emergency departments to see a psychiatrist
have an average wait time of 45 minutes, which
is a 90 percent decrease in wait time, according
to Northwell.
“The longer patients spend in the emergency department
before seeing a psychiatric specialist, often
the worse their symptoms can become,” said Dr. Jonathan
Merson, Northwell Health’s medical director of
telepsychiatry services.
“We truly believe that patients experiencing a behavioral
health crisis should receive the same level of
care regardless of their location, whether it’s an urban
setting or a rural setting,” Merson said. “Everybody’s
entitled to the same level of care when they’re experiencing
a behavioral-health crisis.”
COURTESY NORTHWELL
With telepsychiatry, patients will get connected
with emergency psychiatric services
with less wait time.
Schneps Media TVG April 18, 2019 21