Case Study: Penn State Health achieves expanded, low-barrier virtual ALS care with Amwell

Breaking Down Barriers to Patient Care through Virtual ALS Treatment

Penn State Health, a multi-hospital system serving 29 counties in central Pennsylvania, needed a way to reduce the travel burden and care fragmentation faced by patients with ALS who require coordinated, multidisciplinary visits. After launching Penn State Health OnDemand, the system sought a scalable teleALS solution and in 2018 implemented Amwell’s telehealth technology to extend care into patients’ homes.

Using the Amwell platform (integrated with Cerner), Penn State Health consolidated multidisciplinary ALS care into single virtual appointments—providers join and exit as needed—reducing patient travel and wait times. In just over ten months the program completed more than 98 teleALS visits, saving patients more than 8,374 miles of travel, improving patient satisfaction, and freeing clinic capacity for higher‑acuity in‑person visits.

Penn State Health

Zachary Simmons

Director