Committee on Hospitals meeting
April 20, 2026, 10:00 AM
The Committee on Hospitals held an oversight hearing on NYC Health + Hospitals' SHOW Vans initiative, which provides mobile health and outreach services to New Yorkers in need. No legislation was voted on.
What was discussed
- Chair Narcisse opens the oversight hearing on the SHOW van program Council Member Mercedes Narcisse, Chair of the Committee on Hospitals, opened the oversight hearing on NYC Health + Hospitals' Street Health Outreach and Wellness (SHOW) van initiative, praising the mobile units that have brought medical, mental-health, and harm-reduction services to unhoused and
- Administration witnesses are sworn in Committee Counsel Ria Ogasawara administered the affirmation to the H+H witnesses, Dr. Ted Long and Jason Hansman, before their testimony.
- Dr. Ted Long lays out the SHOW initiative and its five-year results Dr. Ted Long, Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer at NYC Health + Hospitals, testified that the SHOW program launched in April 2021 to vaccinate homeless New Yorkers and has grown to six units offering wound care, substance-use treatment, behavioral health, and, as of summer 2025
- How many tests, treatments, and supply kits has SHOW delivered since 2021? Pressed by Chair Narcisse for hard numbers, Dr. Long said the SHOW program has completed roughly 67,000 COVID-19 tests, connected over 1,900 people to substance-use treatment, distributed about 90,000 combined food and hygiene kits, and run smaller volumes of newer lab tests (HIV, A1c, hepatitis
- Why did Staten Island lose its SHOW van, and where will the new units go? Asked why the Staten Island North Shore van was discontinued, Dr. Long said the two units that had served it were temporary additions funded for a subway initiative and were cut when that funding ended; he said the preliminary budget funds three new 'hyper-mobile' units, and that H+H will work with
- How are patients told when a van will return, and will hours expand to weekends? Dr. Long said patients are notified of schedule changes through flyers and through DHS and community partners, and he committed to alerting council members of hours changes so they can share them in newsletters; on weekends, he said H+H has tried evening and weekend hours but found weekday hours are
- How often is the data used to place the vans updated? Jason Hansman said H+H continuously reviews overdose data from the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene along with what it sees in its own ERs and clinics to identify hotspots, and Dr. Long added that placement also weighs affiliate-hospital catchment areas, where homeless New Yorkers are
- How do the safety-net clinics and Bridge to Home fit SHOW's care ecosystem? Dr. Long described SHOW as the outreach 'first touch' that connects people to specialized primary care safety net (PCSN) clinics, which he said cut a homeless patient's risk of an ER visit by 57% and of hospital admission by 67%; he said the preliminary budget also funds the Bridge to Home program
- Which hospitals are the SHOW vans affiliated with, and will that expand? Dr. Long confirmed the vans are currently affiliated with four H+H hospitals—Bellevue, Woodhull, Elmhurst, and Lincoln—and said H+H wants to add more PCSN sites and expand related programs, including clinics for justice-involved New Yorkers leaving Rikers, as the SHOW program grows.
- Are the vans ADA-accessible and equipped for language interpretation? Dr. Long said all SHOW vans are ADA-accessible with a rear lift and carry the same interpretation service used across H+H, covering more than 300 languages and dialects via H+H-issued cell phones, telling the Chair every unit has equivalent language access to an H+H hospital.
- What did the State Comptroller's language-access audit find, and what changed? Narcisse cited a November 2025 State Comptroller audit that found gaps in language-access services at SHOW van sites under Title 10 §405.7; Dr. Long said H+H reviewed the report and reinforced with staff that everyone has access to interpreter services, issuing H+H cell phones so interpretation can
- How is patient privacy protected on the vans? Dr. Long said the vans are outfitted with an enclosed exam room toward the back whose door can be shut for privacy, and that the vehicles are intentionally not used to transport patients so they can serve as private treatment spaces.
- What do the new lab, ultrasound, and blood-draw services add, and which vaccines are offered? Dr. Long said point-of-care testing and ultrasound (POCUS) return results within about five minutes—POCUS can distinguish an abscess needing hospital drainage from cellulitis treatable on site—while formal lab draws, reserved for patients not going to a clinic, take about 48 hours; he said these
- Will SHOW expand to Jacobi Hospital and the Northeast Bronx? Council Member Shirley Aldebol asked about expanding to the Jacobi Hospital area and Northeast Bronx, citing growing encampments in Pelham Bay Park and Pelham Parkway; Dr. Long said the current Bronx units are anchored near Lincoln Hospital in the South Bronx and invited collaboration on deploying
- Which behavioral health and harm-reduction services are most used? Jason Hansman said the most-used behavioral-health services are substance-use services—Narcan, fentanyl and xylazine test strips, screening, and connection to treatment—with roughly 2,000 people connected to substance-use treatment and variation seen van to van; Dr. Long added that teams can now do
- How does SHOW handle emergencies, team staffing, and vehicle upkeep? Dr. Long said emergencies are not infrequent and teams arrange transport based on clinical need, and described the SHOW team as a medical provider, social worker, addiction counselor, clerical associate, peer or community health worker, and registered nurse who often also staff the affiliated
- How large is the SHOW fleet now and after the budget expansion? Clarifying the fleet count, Dr. Long said the core program has always been six units; two extra units added under the former administration for the subway initiative were discontinued when that funding ended, so the fleet will grow from six to nine with the three new units in the preliminary budget.
- What did the WARM winter overnight initiative do during code-blue conditions? Dr. Long described the WARM (Winter Access Relief and Medical) initiative as an overnight adaptation of the SHOW model during the recent cold snap, offering warmth, food, hot tea and soup, and medical outreach overnight when it was freezing, and said it logged more than 13,000 street engagements.
- How do housing navigators and continuity of care work? Dr. Long said that once a SHOW team meets a person's immediate needs it connects them to DHS for shelter—done about 3,400 times since 2021—and works to keep patients in continuous care through the safety-net clinics and Bridge to Home, calling continuity 'the backbone of primary care' and
- What is the Bridge to Home program? Asked to describe Bridge to Home for the record, Dr. Long said it is a home-like setting for people with serious mental illness leaving the hospital, with private rooms and around-the-clock psychiatrists, nurses, and social workers who help patients stay on medication; he said the program is already
Agenda
1 item
- T2026-1580 Oversight - Examining NYC H+H's SHOW Vans Initiative. Hearing Held by Committee