Corrections_Today_Summer_2025_Vol.87_No.2

Thinking differently At Hudson County Correctional Center (“Hudson County”) located in Kearny, New Jersey, local leadership has been thinking differently for a while, always looking for creative ways to increase efficiency in delivering care for the justice-involved population that has been entrust ed to their custody. Weeks before the subcommittee’s hearing, Hudson County kicked off a first-in-the-nation pilot initiative that would increase access to care for its justice-involved patient population, while simultane ously decreasing the strain on its correctional officer staffing. To eliminate barriers to healthcare access, Hudson County sought to leverage the use of existing tablets to bring healthcare services directly to patients within their housing units, maximizing the existing in vestments made on tablets and Wi-Fi infrastructure. The pilot initiative was the culmination of a year of planning in collaboration with academic experts who previously led the telehealth service development, implementation and operations of a federally designated National Tele health Center of Excellence. 3 Excellence is a core value of Hudson County, and this initiative demonstrates that commitment where “partnerships are encouraged and cultivated to enhance delivery of services” and the “use of technology and innovation are maximized for efficient and effective delivery of services.” 4

While this initiative cannot solve correctional of ficer shortages, it can serve as an additional tool, when clinically appropriate, to safely deliver certain healthcare services to patients in their housing units via telehealth technologies. Leveraging telehealth can decrease the volume of internal, correctional officer escorted transfers to the fixed clinic site, helping to ensure the provision of timely, efficient, clinically appropriate medical care, while simultaneously reducing safety risks. Pilot initiative The project team utilized a nationally recognized telehealth framework to mitigate challenges and sup port a successful pathway to scaling the service. 5 First, the scope of the initiative was clearly defined in which medical providers, supported by virtual nursing servic es, would conduct virtual sick call visits with patients in their housing units via a secure, HIPAA-compliant telehealth platform. The clinical staff, including the virtual nurses, were positions already on the existing staffing matrix, so no additional investment in staffing was required. The telehealth platform was accessible through existing correctional grade tablet devices already present at Hudson County. The tablets were historically used for telecommunications, entertain ment and education but never for healthcare delivery. →

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Summer 2025 | Corrections Today

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