GD's e-Bridge Powers NYC ET3 Telehealth Programs

RIDGEFIELD, N.J. - Dec. 29, 2022 - PRLog -- New York City EMS Ambulances are now live with the Emergency Treat, Triage, and Transport (ET3) model using telehealth enabled by GDs' e-Bridge Communication Platform. Through a collaborative partnership with the Fire Department of New York (FDNY), The Mt. Sinai Hospital, New York-Presbyterian, Jamaica Hospital Medical Center, Montefiore Medical Center, Northwell Health, and NYC Health + Hospitals, are participants in the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) ET3 model. According to CMS, the ET3 will allow access to the most appropriate emergency services at the right time and the right place with the aim of improving quality of care while lowering costs by reducing avoidable transports to the ED and unnecessary hospitalizations that follow the group.

When a call to the city's 911 necessitates an ambulance, it is often an FDNY unit that is dispatched but may also be one of their partner hospital ambulances. Typically these calls result in transport to a hospital as that has been the only option.  Now with ET3 operational, if patients for lower acuity calls are eligible and opt-in, EMTs on-scene can initiate a live telehealth video call with a physician by using GD's e-Bridge app from a smart device. Following consultation with the crew and patient, the physician can direct EMS providers to treat-in-place, transport to an alternate destination like an urgent care or transport to a hospital.

"I credit the FDNY EMS leadership with putting together quite a program with lots of moving parts. In fact, the telehealth aspects of the system are quite complex with each of the connected hospitals using various solutions internally.  Thats where GD came in and adapted it's powerful e-Bridge communications technology whereby it can handle the telehealth call end-to-end or hand it off to one of the several hospital systems," said Curt Bashford, GD's CEO. "This single app solution was necessary to make it easy for the ambulance crew to provide seamless patient care with just a few clicks. That's what we call responsive innovation," added Bashford.

With e-Bridge, users experience a range of benefits including:

• Telehealth for treat-in-place and on-scene care
• Faster time-to-treatment
• Better communication and workflow between care teams
• Alerts and Notifications with real-time ETA
• Live video language interpretation
• Improved QA with voice and data logging and recording
• Documented patient treatment refusals
• Risk mitigation with legal documentation and HIPAA secure communications