Reengineering the Discharge Transition Process of COVID-19 Patients Using Telemedicine, Remote Patient Monitoring, and Around-the-Clock Remote Patient Monitoring from the Emergency Department and Inpatient Units
Rich Kodama, Sunny Arora, Swati Anand, Abu Choudhary, Jeremy A. Weingarten, Notar Francesco, Gerardo Chiricolo, Steven H. Silber, Parag Mehta
Abstract
Background: At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, New York City quickly became the epicenter with hospitals at full capacity needing to care for patients. At New York Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Hospital, we needed to develop an innovative system of how to safely discharge the massive influx of patients. Inundation of patient care with limited manpower and resources forced us to align with a third-party vendor, around-the-clock alert, to make remote patient monitoring (RPM) possible. Each patient was prescribed a pulse oximeter and nurses were assigned to monitor vital signs, speak to patients, and escalate to physicians if required.