• Ross Kristal, Madden Rowell, Marielle Kress, Chris Keeley, Hannah Jackson, Katherine Piwnica-Worms, Lisa Hendricks, Theodore G Long, and Andrew B Wallach.
• Ross Kristal (kristalr@nychhc.org) is co-medical director in the New York City Health + Hospitals Contact Center, Office of Ambulatory Care, NYC Health + Hospitals, in New York, New York.
• Health Aff (Millwood). 2020 Aug 1; 39 (8): 1431-1436.

AbstractIn early March 2020 an outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in New York City exerted sudden and extreme pressures on emergency medical services and quickly changed public health policy and clinical guidance. Recognizing this, New York City Health + Hospitals established a clinician-staffed COVID-19 hotline for all New Yorkers. The hotline underwent three phases as the health crisis evolved. As of May 1, 2020, the hotline had received more than ninety thousand calls and was staffed by more than a thousand unique clinicians. Hotline clinicians provided callers with clinical assessment and guidance, registered them for home symptom monitoring, connected them to social services, and provided a source of up-to-date answers to COVID-19 questions. By connecting New Yorkers with hotline clinicians, regardless of their regular avenues of accessing care, the hotline aimed to ease the pressures on the city's overtaxed emergency medical services. Future consideration should be given to promoting easy access to clinician hotlines by disadvantaged communities early in a public health crisis and to evaluating the impact of clinician hotlines on clinical outcomes.

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