![Re-defining Quality of Clinical Care in Telemedicine](https://www.medicalcarereview.com/newstransfer/upload/450x308_QNn1.webp)
![Re-defining Quality of Clinical Care in Telemedicine](https://www.medicalcarereview.com/newstransfer/upload/450x308_QNn1.webp)
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In March 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic took hold over the metro NYC area, NYU Langone Health saw a 683 percent increase in Virtual Urgent Care (VUC) video visits. Our clinicians saw an average of 20-30 patients per day virtually before the pandemic began, but that rose to over 1,000 per day at the height of COVID-19. Telemedicine’s growth has been incremental and relatively slow over the previous 5-10 years, but the current pandemic has created a need to quickly adapt to a new normal of social distancing and meet the increase in demand for virtual visits.
NYU Langone was well situated to meet this demand due to our existing infrastructure and strong foundation of digital tools, which we quickly scaled up to accommodate a higher capacity of patients. Our Virtual Urgent Care services began with just 40 physicians and has grown to include 289 providers from multiple specialties to treat patients during the pandemic. As telemedicine demand surged, we noticed an increase in not only the volume of patients, but also the type of patient that sought treatment from our providers. Through these services, our clinicians treat a wide range of patients from standard, low acuity patients to those who are acutely ill with multiple co-morbidities. With the significant increase in volumes and higher acuity during the first phase of the COVID pandemic, we noticed that unfortunately, some patients were expiring after VUC visits. Knowing that our patients were suffering untimely deaths, we felt the need to capture data and determine if there were any preventable causes of these deaths. Through a systematic review, we were able to determine risk factors for referrals to the Emergency Departments, as well as identify those patients who may deteriorate to an ICU admission, airway intervention or death.