Medical Doctor

New York awards hospitals more than $300M for IT and cyber investments. The state announces new funding aimed at expanding electronic health records, strengthening cybersecurity, and increasing telehealth and post-acute care services. New York has announced new technology funding for hospitals, disbursed under its Statewide Health Care Facility Transformation Program. This year's money - more than $300 million - is earmarked for IT, cybersecurity, telehealth and other digital transformation efforts, and is to be divided among 22 hospitals that span every region of the Empire State. The state has already awarded more than $1.75 billion in previous rounds to providers working to improve access, equity and quality of care, N.Y. Gov. Kathy Hochul noted this past Friday. "By modernizing our hospitals' IT infrastructure and protecting patients' information, we're strengthening the foundation of health care in New York State," she said in a statement. "These investments will help ensure that hospitals have the tools they need to safeguard patient data, expand telehealth services and deliver a healthier future for all New Yorkers." This year's funding for critical health information technology infrastructure modernization, cybersecurity and patient information security, and telehealth expansion - $309,047,122 - is largely aimed at supporting financially distressed providers, according to Hochul's statement. Ten hospitals received the most funding ($195,127,664) for electronic health record projects. Those are Blythedale Children's Hospital, Calvary Hospital, Richmond Medical Center, Rome Memorial Hospital, Samaritan Medical Center, St. Joseph's Hospital, Yonkers Stony Brook University Hospital, The Brooklyn Hospital Center, Westchester Ellenville Hospital and Wyckoff Heights Medical Center. Individual awards ranged from $54,098,779 for Richmond's EHR needs to $1.2 million for those at Blythedale Children's. Eight hospitals - Adirondack Medical Center, Claxton-Hepburn Medical Center, Ellis Hospital, Montefiore Health System, Niagara Falls Memorial Medical Center, One Brooklyn Health System, The Rochester General Hospital and Calvary Hospital - all received funding for cybersecurity projects. The total allocation for healthcare information security represents the next largest pool of funding at $101.7 million under the program. Montefiore, a Bronx-based health system, received the highest award for security upgrades at $41.475 million, while the medical center in Niagara Falls received the smallest award at $530,000. Four projects received funding for telehealth with a total allocation of nearly $5.28 million. Those are Champlain Valley Physicians Hospital Medical Center ($1.015 million), Columbia Memorial Hospital ($290,000), SUNY Health Science Center at Syracuse ($2.43 million) and United Health Services Hospitals ($1.542 million). Rounding out the total pool of this year's healthcare sector transformation funding program round, Mount Sinai Hospital will receive $11,768,743 for population health management technologies that accelerate the transition from hospital to home. Of note, when New York State Medicaid expanded its patient coverage to include remote patient monitoring services provided by clinical staff on Jan. 1 this year, the new reimbursement was also viewed as an opportunity to help providers and payers reduce hospital stays. "Providers can extend their care into patients' homes without increasing clinician workloads," noted Alexandria Foley, vice president of nursing and care delivery at Brook Health, an RPM services vendor. "And payers can help members improve long-term health, slow disease progression and reduce costly admissions," she explained to Healthcare IT News in April. The larger goals of the New York Statewide Health Care Facility Transformation Program are to preserve and expand essential healthcare services as part of a broader commitment that has directed more than $4.7 billion in healthcare capital funding statewide since 2016, Hochul noted. But, in addition to the health IT, cybersecurity and telehealth (IV and V of the funding program), the state also announced plans earlier this year to invest $188 million for hospital modernization through the Healthcare Safety Net Transformation Program. That program included awards for EHR integrations, tech upgrades for emergency departments and neonatal intensive care units and other digital health efforts. "Every person should have access to affordable, reliable healthcare regardless of the ZIP code they live in, and these investments will bring vital resources to underserved New Yorkers," said Hochul in a statement at the time. "With these investments, we are focused on developing safe, reliable and connected patient-centered care," said Dr. James McDonald, commissioner of the New York Department of Health, in a statement Friday. "By expanding data capabilities and improving cybersecurity defenses, we're enhancing clinical decision making across the state's healthcare network."

People who receive less sedation when ventilator-dependent more likely to return to independent living after hospitalization. A Montefiore Einstein study finds that heavy use of deep sedation during mechanical ventilation increases the risk of long-term disability, prompting a shift toward early mobilization and non-opioid, symptom-focused care. * Deep sedation was associated with greater risk of adverse discharge outcomes, including loss of independence. * Patients receiving symptom-targeted, non-opioid treatments fared better in regaining functional ability after hospitalization. * Sedation aimed at promoting rest may instead disrupt restorative sleep, contributing to delirium and muscle loss. * Montefiore Einstein has launched a multidisciplinary mobilization committee to reduce deep sedation and encourage early movement in ICUs. Deep sedation - when medications keep patients from being fully conscious and not easily aroused - is commonly used in intensive care units (ICUs) across the country with the aim of preventing ventilated patients from experiencing emotional distress and/or pain during their critical recovery. The problem is that when a patient is deeply sedated, it inhibits them from being able to move their bodies. New research published in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine shows that in a cohort of more than 10,000 people, patients who received a high proportion of deep sedation while mechanically ventilated had a greater risk of adverse discharge - losing their ability to live independently - compared to patients who did not receive deep sedation. The findings, from investigators in the department of anesthesiology at Montefiore Einstein, suggest that patients who received targeted, symptom-focused treatments with non-opioid medications, instead of deep sedation, had higher rates of independent living after being discharged from the hospital. "In this study, we found sedative medications were more likely to be delivered to patients to aid with sleep and rest; however, use of sedative medications can actually strip the exhausted patient of the healthy restorative sleep they need most during illness," says author Matthias Eikermann, MD, PhD, Francis F. Foldes Professor and chair, department of anesthesiology at Montefiore Einstein, in a release. "Our data shows this lack of quality sleep leads to greater rates of immobility in the ICU, which compounds into even more delirium and greater loss of the muscles and nerves needed during recovery." With evidence from this study, the department of anesthesiology spearheaded the creation of a system-wide mobilization committee, including the departments of anesthesiology, medicine, and rehabilitation medicine (including physical therapy and respiratory therapy teams) and nursing, with the goal of reducing the use of deep sedation and increasing early mobilization in the ICUs. This multidisciplinary group will conduct targeted rounds in the ICUs to identify barriers to early mobilization and develop strategies to implement patient-centered interventions. Efforts are supported by a digital patient board in Montefiore Einstein's electronic record system to track these newly developed protocols and a new surgical ICU order set to ensure clinicians have the tools needed to identify alternative pain treatments. By deploying a new symptom-focused treatment strategy, Montefiore Einstein investigators believe that providers will be able to more comprehensively evaluate patients and recognize symptoms of emotional distress, treating them accordingly with antipsychotics or non-opioid analgesics. "Our hope is that the data published in this investigation will fuel national efforts to improve education about deep sedation and adherence to evidence-based guidelines," Eikermann says. "The ultimate goal is to enhance overall patient care and help people return to the lives they want to live with their loved ones."

Orange County, New York [June 10, 2025] - Montefiore St. Luke's Cornwall (MSLC) Emergency Management team partnered with the Orange County OEM to conduct a large-scale mass casualty exercise simulating an international plane crash into the Hudson River.