Coronavirus Prompts Hospitals to Fast-Track Telemedicine Projects

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that hospital chief information officers have been busy implementing new systems and workflows to stay ahead of the growing coronavirus epidemic that threatens to tax frazzled staff and limited resources. Their tasks include developing digital dashboards to speed triage and greenlighting telemedicine projects to reduce expected patient gridlock. Another high priority is testing and retesting systems that will enable staff to work remotely. St. Luke's University Health Network in Pennsylvania is testing a videoconferencing tool targeting senior patients, the most vulnerable to the pandemic, who prefer using a desktop or laptop and not the hospital's mobile-device-based telemedicine tools. Meanwhile, NYU Langone is calling on its partners and vendors to be on standby to increase bandwidth and server capacity in case nonessential employees in such departments as finance are asked to work from home.