In the United States, nursing home residents are often transported to emergency departments by ambulance for urgent care visits. These ambulance trips place a substantial cost burden on the healthcare system. In this interview ACCESS Health researcher Jean Galiana speaks with members of a telemedicine startup, Call9, that links nursing home residents with emergency room doctors remotely. The interview is with Timothy Peck and XiaoSong Mu, the founders of Call9, and Garrett Gleeson, the chief of staff.

Call9 provides emergency medical care, follow up care, and ongoing palliative care to residents in skilled nursing and rehabilitative homes. The Call9 model is both high tech and high touch. The Call9 engineers designed user-friendly patient boards, physician dashboards, and electronic medical record systems that enable the remote physician to see, diagnose, and deliver care via the hands of an onsite Call9 first responder within minutes of a patient’s acute health event.

According to the members of Call9, the program saves nursing homes eight million dollars in health spending annually. The interview shows that including technological solutions to emergency response system can improve the quality of care and reduce costs to the healthcare system overall.