In 2016, Rahul Sharma, M.D., MBA, emergency physician-in-chief at NewYork-Presbyterian and Weill Cornell Medicine, was trying to solve a problem experienced by emergency departments everywhere: How do you efficiently care for patients who are coming in for non-emergencies?
“I had observed some bottlenecks in emergency care caused, in part, by patients coming in for non-acute illnesses and injuries,” says Dr. Sharma. “They didn’t necessarily need to go to the ED, but at the same time, they needed access to care, they needed to be seen.” His growing interest in technology and virtual care pointed him to a potential solution: incorporate telemedicine into emergency care.
Dr. Sharma, who is also chair of the Department of Emergency Medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine, and his team began a pilot that year of what is now called Express Care, a program that enables patients who visit the emergency department with low-acuity symptoms to video conference with an emergency medicine physician in a private room. He and his colleagues published the results of their pilot in the New England Journal of Medicine Catalyst: Patient visits were shorter — typical length of stay was 35 to 40 minutes, versus two to two-and-a-half hours for a traditional ED pathway — while patient satisfaction scores were extremely high. The following year, Dr. Sharma co-authored a commentary in the Journal of the American Medical Association calling for a new type of medical specialty: the medical virtualist, a physician who sees most of their patients remotely.
Dr. Sharma with the AAPL 2025 Roger Schenke Award.
“The article was well received, but people thought we were overestimating the role of telemedicine,” says Dr. Sharma. “Then when the pandemic hit, the perception of virtual care completely changed, and that led to great opportunities for access and innovation.” Dr. Sharma’s contributions to advancing telemedicine and his commitment to developing the next generation of healthcare leaders were recently recognized by the American Association for Physician Leadership, which awarded him with the 2025 Roger Schenke Award, given to individuals for their achievements in healthcare education, management, and training.
Although today Dr. Sharma is a leader in the virtual care space, he keeps that early JAMA article framed in his office as a reminder to always keep pushing transformation forward. “I’ve always liked problem solving and innovation,” he says. “Emergency medicine provides an opportunity to do that on a big scale in a fast-paced environment, and it forces you to continuously look for ways to enhance care models.”
Dr. Sharma spoke with NYP Advances to share how he has seen virtual care evolve and why it’s important for the next generation of healthcare leaders to embrace technology.
What drew you to specialize in emergency medicine?
In medical school, I liked emergency medicine because of the immediate impact it has on patients as well as the fast-paced and diverse nature of the practice. For critical illness, like heart attacks, strokes, or traumas, we always talk about the “golden hour” — how the treatment patients receive in that first hour is the most important because it could result in long-term outcomes that are favorable or unfavorable. Emergency medicine is a unique specialty because it is the safety net of health care and our doors never close, so it provides a tremendous opportunity to impact and improve the lives of all people.
What has changed about telemedicine since the pandemic?
The most obvious change is that the market size of people using telemedicine has grown exponentially. Data from the Kaiser Family Foundation showed that telehealth use grew from 11% in 2019 to 46% at the height of the pandemic. It has now stabilized at around 30% but is still projected to grow modestly.
But here’s what I find most interesting: I don’t believe provider/patient interactions have changed much between a telehealth and an in-person visit; what has changed are patient expectations and how the provider sets the stage for the encounter. At the peak of the pandemic, people were just happy to have access to a doctor, but now the standards are higher. Virtual care is more ubiquitous, so patients expect the same superior experience they would have with an in-person visit. That just shows that telemedicine is medicine, not something different or inferior. The quality of a telemedicine visit should be the same as seeing a provider in-person.
“As this industry and this care model continue to expand, we need formal training and education to ultimately achieve a more uniform and standardized approach to virtual care.”
— Dr. Rahul Sharma