Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons
Information Hotline:
COVID-19 Community Hotline is a service offered by NYP for individuals seeking up-to-date information on COVID-19 and referrals to telemedicine services.
Contact Information:
Dr. David Gudis (dag62@cumc.columbia.edu)
Resource Production and Acquisition:
Mask on, March on! is a student-created initiative to get PPE, specifically masks, into the hands of doctors, nurses,and healthcare staff. To meet the challenge this student group has teamed up with a supplier to manufacture the masks and then distribute the masks to underserved county hospitals throughout New York City.
Contact Information:
Adedeji Adeniyi (ama2329@cumc.columbia.edu)
Information Hotline:
The Columbia COVID-19 initiative produces high-quality, summarized and digestible resources on the COVID-19 pandemic and management, and supports the technological and publishing needs of other service projects. Services include patient education and design, language translation, literature assessment and summary, web design, and outreach.
Contact Information:
Simon Liebling (spl2132@cumc.columbia.edu)
Clinical Work:
The Columbia Student Service Corp Telemedicine Project assists the healthcare system through rapid adoption and utilization of telehealth services to reduce barriers to care, address social determinants and health literacy. Additionally, making sure that all patients continue to be cared for by our systems.
Contact Information:
Taiwo Alonge (tpa2108@cumc.columbia.edu)
Wellness:
The Mental Health and Well Being Initiative here at CUIMC provides opportunities that vary in structure and time commitment, from writing letters of gratitude to spearheading and developing larger community based initiatives and advocacy work. They are here to support the student body, CUIMC/NYP Columbia and Cornell hospital faculty and staff, and the broader New York community.
Contact Information:
Lisa Bonsignore-Opp (lb3192@cumc.columbia.edu)
Resource Production and Acquisition:
The PPE Task Force helps NYP and CUIMC organize procurement, donation, and manufacturing of PPE from interested parties in the community and in industry.
Contact Information:
Billy Buffington (wjb2126@cumc.columbia.edu)
Donald and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell
Household Help:
As many of you know, Northwell residents are on the front lines of this pandemic; many of their daily to-dos have fallen by the wayside. Northwell’s resident wellness committee reached out about needing volunteers to help residents with errands, childcare, grocery shopping, pet care, and general emotional support during this time.
Contact Information:
Julie Hemphill (jhemphill1@pride.hofstra.edu), Julia Su (jsu2@pride.hofstra.edu)
Outreach and Social Media:
Healthcare education is a crucial part of this pandemic, as information is ever changing. Students in this role will be responsible for developing educational materials for Zucker SOM social media channels and working with Angela Ferrante to post content. There will potentially be additional opportunity for education through local channels.
Contact Information:
Fatimah Mozawalla (fmozawalla1@pride.hofstra.edu)
Screening and Testing:
Northwell swab sites & drive-by testing sites need volunteers to test potentially exposed patients for COVID-19. This shift runs from 7AM-7PM, 24/7. Students must be willing to wear hazmat suits and adhere to strict guidelines. Training is required for this position. Partial shifts are NOT available.
Contact Information:
Cristina Pelin (cpelin1@pride.hofstra.edu), James Alzate (jalzate2@pride.hofstra.edu)
Academic Tutoring:
Student volun-tutors will help the elementary, middle, and high school students in the local community with the current online curriculum in the setting of COVID-19-related school closures. Student responsibilities are as follows: 1) attend (on video) a mandatory training session to review tutoring strategies, 2) assist with outreach to local underserved communities, the Northwell employee system, and/or own home communities, 3) have students being tutored or their parents fill out a Google Form at the end of each session which will evaluate student’s job as a tutor and serve as proof of session occurrence, 4) attend a weekly session with other students (total of 3-4) tutoring similar subjects/age groups to reflect on experiences and discuss techniques that have and have not been working and ways to become better tutors.
Contact Information:
Melissa Robinson (mrobinson4@pride.hofstra.edu)
Blood Drive:
Students are participating in a blood drive with NY Blood Centers. Individual appointments are set up with additional safety precautions in place.
Contact Information:
Disha Yellayi (dyellayi1@pride.hofstra.edu)
Clinical Work:
Students will call sick patients who are mild to moderately ill with presumed COVID19 daily to check in on their symptoms at home while their providers are redeployed. As several of the providers have been redeployed, help in following up with this list of patients would be greatly appreciated.
Recruiting a group of 3-8 interested students who have access to AEHR on portal and a phone. Ideally, students should have 1-2 hours of availability every day (including weekends) to devote to this activity for the next 2-4 weeks. If emergencies arise, we certainly will change arrangements.
We would train these students to look up patients on Allscripts, call these patients, ask about symptoms, document a phone note, and report any questions, concerns, or changes to the provider or covering provider daily. Once trained, we would then connect these students to a provider who would ‘sign out’ their list of patients electronically and students would begin calls the following day.
Contact Information:
Samantha Wu (ywu51@pride.hofstra.edu)
New York Medical College
Outreach and Social Media:
Centralized project management platform to share opportunities and facilitate volunteer sign-ups for each initiative. Their projects include providing virtual tutoring sessions as well as child and pet care for healthcare workers.
Contact Information:
Mathias Palmer (mathias.palmer@student.nymc.edu)
Wellness:
Programs are being planned by student led wellness and resiliency teams. These efforts include sessions that will cover topics faced by medical students including imposter syndrome, patient deaths and ethical conundrums
Contact Information:
Brianna Evans (brianna.evans@student.nymc.edu)
New York University Grossman School of Medicine
Resource Production and Acquisition:
Creatively sourcing personal protective equipment from a range of businesses, including veterinarians, tattoo parlors, dry cleaners, hardware stores and hair and nail salons.
Contact Information:
Elyse Berlinberg (elyse.berlinberg@nyulangone.edu)
Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook University
Food Services:
Due to the overwhelming outpouring of community support through food donations, we have created this Meal Train account to ensure that your food donation is efficiently distributed to staff who need it. These donations are very much appreciated by the nurses, doctors, and ENTIRE staff who are working on the front line of defense against the COVID-19 situation. Each day, we rise to meet a new challenge. This is a great way to say thank you to everyone at Stony Brook Hospital for their unwavering commitment to this community.
For the safety of all and to stay within the CDC guidelines, all donations are by appointment only.
Please deliver meals to the main entrance loop. Call Kevin Daly at (631) 807-5610 for a staff member to pick up outside the building. This Meal Train will bring hope, confidence and comfort to everyone who wears a Stony Brook Hospital uniform. Thank you so much for all of the community support! We really appreciate it.
Contact Information:
Terri Quinn (terri.quinn@stonybrookmedicine.edu)
General Services:
We are at an unprecedented time in history where the entire world is struck with a pandemic and the United States is significantly affected. New York in particular is struggling to meet the demands on its health care system. We are trying to organize our needs and offers for help at Stony Brook in a systematic way. Together, we will overcome this crisis.
Below are some of the categories where help is likely to be needed-
COVID-19 Community Hotline
PPE Task Force
COVID-19 Research
Provider Childcare Task Force
Information Services
Telemedicine COVID Follow-Up
Medical Education
Telemedicine Patient Assist
Mental Health and Well Being
Workforce Health and Safety
Overflow Staffing and Support
Volunteer Coordination
Patient Population and Outreach Projects
Contact Information:
Joan Dickinson (joan.dickinson@stonybrook.edu)
State University of New York, Downstate Medical Center College of Medicine
Resource Production and Acquisition:
In response to an outpouring of generosity by our community to donate critical medical supplies, SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University – University Hospital of Brooklyn has established a special email that be contacted by anyone interested in making donations.
Contact Information:
SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University Donation (donate@downstate.edu)
Clinical Work:
Outpatient Needs Assessment – The needs assessment project, developed by students in conjunction with Downstate faculty, is a screening survey and patient navigation system using student volunteers to evaluate the healthcare and social needs of ambulatory patients. By phone, patients are helped directly or referred to resources within the hospital system and greater community to address a range of needs from prescription refills to arranging grocery deliveries to screening for public assistance benefits. The project is now being integrated into the Family of Medicine’s educational curriculum around social determinants of health to ensure its longevity after the pandemic.
Contact Information:
Nicolle Siegart (nicolle.siegart@downstate.edu), Lucy Bickerton (lucy.bickerton@downstate.edu), Jasmine Walker (jasmine.walker@downstate.edu)
Clinical Work:
Family Contact Line – Students return HIPAA compliant updates to patient’s family members based on remote chart review, provide general education on quarantine and COVID-19 return precautions, and obtain PMH for patients who are new to KCH.
Contact Information:
Anjali Jaiman (anjali.jaiman@downstate.edu), Aron Egelko (aron.egelko@downstate.edu), Jack Hessburg (john.hessburg@downstate.edu)
Clinical Work:
Inpatient Team Support – Students working with team members and physician family liaisons to run the list, obtain updates for patients on that team, and then make proactive calls to update family members.
Contact Information:
Anjali Jaiman (anjali.jaiman@downstate.edu), Aron Egelko (aron.egelko@downstate.edu), Jack Hessburg (john.hessburg@downstate.edu)
Clinical Work:
Command Center/Administrative Assistance – Daily student support in KCH command center assisting with miscellaneous problems as they occur: locating missing or incorrectly registered patients, assisting with post-mortem family concerns, and participate in other tasks with no patient contact. Developed procedure for arranging compassionate visit for patient nearing end of life, assisting with arranging visits as they occur.
Contact Information:
Anjali Jaiman (anjali.jaiman@downstate.edu), Aron Egelko (aron.egelko@downstate.edu), Jack Hessburg (john.hessburg@downstate.edu)
Clinical Work:
Infection Control Project – Students contact PUIs discharged from the ED to inform them of their test results and CDC guidelines based on that result, as well as offering follow up 24-48 hours after their discharge. Students also contact families of patients regarding their relatives’ test results, instructing them on proper protocol due to their COVID-19 exposure. Students track any staff members who may have been exposed to other staff members who tested positive for COVID-19; these staff members are identified through the Infection Control Department, which is informed by departments reporting exposure. Students also perform weekly checks on staff members with symptoms who were identified by Employee Health, to identify if they are cleared to return to work.
Contact Information:
Jessica Chumsky (jessica.chumsky@downstate.edu)
Clinical Work:
COVID Result Delivery Hotline – In a partnership with the NYC Health and Hospitals Corporation (HHC), students are volunteering to contact patients with negative COVID-19 test results. MS1 and MS2 contact patients from HHC who have received a COVID-19 test at one of their affiliated institutions and tested negative. MS3 and MS4 contact patients with positive results and coordinate further assistance when needed. Students are responsible for verifying the identity of the patient, informing the patient of results and instructing them on their next steps.
Contact Information:
Sierrah Grigsby (sierrah.grigsby@downstate.edu)
Clinical Work:
Emergency Preparedness – Students man the Employee and Student Hotline COVID Call Center, help with in-office tasks, writing documents, developing response protocols with Emergency Prep physicians, and following up with Downstate faculty/staff for COVID response tasks. They also perform around the clock remote data collection to follow Inpatients, Outpatients, and ED patients who get tested for COVID19, doing chart review, data analysis, and creating graphs in real time as patients get admitted to the hospital in order to present every morning during morning huddle. Students also organize and prepare the slides for the hospital COVID-19 Morning Huddles.
Contact Information:
Clara Wilson (clara.wilson@downstate.edu)
COVID-19 Education:
Patient Education Materials – Student volunteers produce and provide education materials for the general public. Information includes but is not limited to symptom awareness, social distancing instructions, home care instructions, and general data collected regarding COVID-19. Students are responsible for monitoring daily updates related to COVID-19, social resources, and governmental instructions, and consolidating information into a public-friendly format on the Downstate websites, newsletters, and infographics. Information is disseminated to the Downstate community, local organizations, and patients and their families.
Contact Information:
Jade Olayinka (temitope.olayinka@downstate.edu)
Food Services:
Food Coordination – We are working with hospital administrative structure to further facilitate donations from restaurants and corporations in the area that have offered to provide free food to healthcare workers. We are compiling a list of contacts in different departments that would benefit from food deliveries for staff, while working closely with people in other organizations to facilitate funding, donations, and deliveries. We are also developing a list of food resources, grocery delivery services, and seeing if there is a way to coordinate grocery delivery to healthcare workers at the hospital.
Contact Information:
Hermione Gaw (hermione.gaw@downstate.edu), Dunni Ogundipe (oladunni.ogundipe@downstate.edu)
General Services:
Community Based Organization Access – The community-based organization team is responsible for reaching out to nonprofit, mutual aid, and government-funded organizations with the ability to answer the needs of our patient population. These organizations and groups, many of which are well-established in the community, already have avenues by which they help people in need. Those needs include, among others, food assistance, delivery of supplies, housing assistance, child care and education assistance. Once the resources are identified, students have contacted them to confirm their status during the pandemic, as many offices are currently closed. The majority of organizations ready and willing to help are neighborhood mutual aid groups, though there are also many government-funded programs to which patients can apply.
Contact Information:
Jasmine Walker (jasmine.walker@downstate.edu)
IT and Technical Support:
Outpatient Telemedicine and Clerical – Outpatient sites have requested help with telemedicine as they convert to primarily remote visits. They have also requested help in clerical day-to-day issues such as rescheduling patient visits and other office duties. Project coordinators will work with site coordinators, attendings and the IT department to develop site-specific protocols for student participation, supervision, and recording during telemedicine. Students will work with attendings and patients to train them to use telemedicine tools.
Contact Information:
Lauren Vicente (lauren.vicente@downstate.edu), Marine Coste (marine.coste@downstate.edu), Ying Yin Zhou
Resource Production and Acquisition:
Supply Chain Project – Students assisting the Supply and Admitting departments with inventory management as well as identifying and vetting potential vendors and donors of PPE.
Contact Information:
Jonathan Leong (jonathan.leong@downstate.edu)
Screening and Testing:
Laboratory Testing and Support Team – The laboratory testing and support team was developed to assist the clinical pathology laboratories of SUNY Downstate Medical Center as the hospital began in-house diagnostic testing for COVID-19 and the laboratories were faced with an increasing number of patient specimens, from both the emergency department and the inpatient floors, that required testing. Students were divided into teams to both support laboratory faculty and pathology residents as well as directly assist in specimen testing. The teams continue to evolve in order to address the changing needs of the department. The current teams are involved in specimen transport, calling in critical lab values to ordering physicians, performing diagnostic testing of patient specimens for the SARS-CoV-2 virus, assisting in chemical assays, validating testing of various specimen types, and aiding faculty with COVID-19 antibody testing.
Contact Information:
Lindsay Hill (lindsay.hill@downstate.edu)
Wellness:
Mental Health and Wellness of Students – We act as a centralized group to create and organize mental health resources and to help students access resources, both general and Downstate-specific. We administered needs assessments to determine what students were most concerned about as well as what programming they would like to see. Scope of the project: student-to-student organization and outreach (no patient interaction or contact), clinician-to-student outreach. Based on assessment response, we created online community-building activities (yoga, bookclub, mediation and humanism rounds) as well as weekly check-in support groups facilitated by Psychiatry staff. Our group also worked with school administrators and the student Medical Council to improve programming and outreach to students.
Contact Information:
Paige Marze (paige.marze@downstate.edu), Laura Werle (laura.werle@downstate.edu), Adriana Kavoussi (adriana.kavoussi@downstate.edu)
University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry
Arts, Media, and Entertainment:
Humanity in the Time of Corona: A place to document our experiences and to maintain social connection. Visit our website.
Contact Information:
Arielle Schecter (arielle_schecter@urmc.rochester.edu)
COVID-19 Education:
Resources for us to learn about what the heck is going on with this public health crisis, and plug in where we can. Stay well, and we will see you on the other side.
Contact Information:
Arielle Schecter (arielle_schecter@urmc.rochester.edu)
General Services:
Student volunteer opportunities are found in our Google doc.
Contact Information:
Arielle Schecter (arielle_schecter@urmc.rochester.edu)
Weill Cornell Medicine
Blood Drive:
If you are in the NYC area, please consider donating to the New York Blood Center. They have expanded capacity at their donation centers and are following social distancing guidelines.
Contact Information:
Artine Arzani (ana4010@med.cornell.edu), Daniel Restifo (dpr4001@med.cornell.edu)
Visitation and Check-In:
Local NYC Community Support Initiative. Meal delivery via Meals on Wheels program, writing letters to local elderly, other community service ideas that don’t involve direct patient contact.
Contact Information:
Artine Arzani (ana4010@med.cornell.edu), Daniel Restifo (dpr4001@med.cornell.edu)
Resource Production and Acquisition:
PPE team is focused on helping to source PPE to our healthcare workers on the front lines at NYP. We have several initiatives including community and business outreach, raising public awareness of the need through social media, fundraising, investigating new ways to make and recycle masks, and coordinating with other NYC medical schools on PPE efforts.
Contact Information:
Natasha Smith (nms2010@med.cornell.edu), Noah Feit (nzf2001@med.cornell.edu)
Wellness:
To provide resources in support of WCM faculty and clinical staff working on the front lines of the crisis. This will take the form of providing food, relaxation spaces and other resources 24 hours/day. The intent is to give respite from the hectic situations in the Emergency Department, ICU units and others working with patients affected by the pandemic.
Contact Information:
Karan Bains (jsb2009@med.cornell.edu)
Academic Tutoring:
Tutoring of local NYC students who are now learning remotely.
Contact Information:
Julia Klein (jik4001@med.cornell.edu)
Food Services:
WCM Food Relief Team is working to provide meals to healthcare workers fighting the COVID-19 crisis while supporting the local restaurant industry. By partnering with community organizations, meals are purchased from nearby restaurants and delivered to a rotating list of teams throughout the hospital.
Contact Information:
Anu Goel (arg2015@med.cornell.edu)