With hospital systems responding to unprecedented demand, and people with possible COVID-19 symptoms often unsure of where to get care, two Mount Sinai physicians saw an opportunity for technology to come to the rescue.
David F. Putrino, PhD, Director of Rehabilitation Innovation for the Mount Sinai Health System, and Christopher Kellner, MD, a cerebrovascular neurosurgeon with the Mount Sinai Health System, developed Precision Recovery, an innovative system to monitor patients with COVID-19 symptoms remotely so they can stay home and rapidly respond to their needs when necessary. In this Q&A, they describe how this novel platform can help patients and hospitals in New York and throughout the United States.
What is Precision Recovery?
Precision Recovery is a digital platform that goes a step beyond the typical telehealth scenario because it monitors the patient’s symptoms daily, enables us to get patients the right care for their situation, and escalate it when appropriate. Anybody in the country can sign up, just by texting the words “Precision Recovery” to 332-213-9130. We onboard them with a video chat and then they download an app on any smart device so that we can monitor their symptoms every day. The platform tracks the patient’s symptoms—whether it be fever, headaches, or respiratory symptoms—and alerts us to contact the patient if their symptoms are worsening.
We initially developed Precision Recovery as a program to help individuals recovering from stroke who needed close daily monitoring. In the wake of the COVID-19 crisis, we quickly adapted the program to provide day-by-day monitoring of individuals who are showing signs of COVID-19 but were unsure whether they should go to the emergency room or just ride it out at home.
We saw that people would go to the emergency room and one of several things might happen: they may or may not be tested, or no testing might be available, and many times they would be told that they were not sick enough to be admitted. And that might be the end of their care. If they get sicker, they don’t know whether they should go back to the emergency room or call a doctor, or just stay home.
There’s a lot of fear and anxiety around COVID-19. How does Precision Recovery provide a sense of security?
We want people to think of us as a safety net. We’re here to answer any concerns people have about their symptoms. Once a patient signs up, a provider from the Precision Recovery team will contact the person for an online video chat. As part of the onboarding, the patient downloads a daily symptom tracking app, MyCap, and enters their symptoms and vital data. The team is then able to track symptoms of the virus, such as body temperature, cough, breathing levels, and body aches. There will be a weekly video chat to check in on the patient through Zoom, but if we see symptoms get worse, we will get in touch with the patient. If necessary, we can get them an ambulance and get them to the right hospital. And we can do that for anybody in the country.
Is this available to other health systems?
Currently, this is only implemented at Mount Sinai but there are a numerous health care systems with whom we are collaborating to roll this out shortly in their hospitals.