Penn Medicine has recently moved after-hours patient calls to a 24/7 virtual care platform, releasing physicians from required responses while off shift.
Penn Medicine OnDemand directs patients to its own providers instead of their usual doctor, and has recently expanded to increasingly handle overnight patient calls across the primary care network. 63 practices had implemented the initiative as of January, making Penn Med the first health care provider in the region to offer a similar program.
Director of the Penn Center for Connected Care Ann Huffenberger told The Daily Pennsylvanian that the program “went live” in October 2025 to improve “employee wellness” for Penn Med’s physicians and primary care providers.
“The executives at the system level decided that they wanted to really provide a work life balance for our primary care,” Huffenberger added.
All primary care providers partnering with the virtual care service have been able to redirect calls between 5 p.m. and 8:30 a.m. The program currently has “around 13 fully dedicated staff,” all of whom are nurse practitioners. All patients in the region can access these services, even if they do not currently see a Penn Med primary care provider.
“It becomes a clinical funnel, which provides what we call a ‘standard of care,’” Huffenberger said. “Anyone who’s calling their doctor after hours now will have a really well regimented, evidence based standard of care in providing the clinical assistance after hours.”
Huffenberger added that “it’s fairly common” that students are using Penn Medicine OnDemand for after-hours care services.
“We are working closely with Student Wellness to think about ways that we can even work closer,” she added.
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Huffenberger told the DP that the program continues to expand, and has integrated “around 76 at this point,” including nearly all of the network’s primary care — except for Lancaster General Health, which operates on a difference instance of EPIC electronic health record.
“We’ll fold them in, but not until 2027 when they become one Penn Medicine record ... on PennChart,” she said.
Huffenberger expressed interest in expanding virtual care services to “include assistance from medical specialists and prepare patients for in-person appointments.”
“As a health system, we’re always trying to look into improved access — not only to primary care, but also to specialty care,” she said.
In an interview with the DP, head of Penn Med Digital and Emerging Care Transformation at Christina O’Malley explained that OnDemand initially began in 2017 as a way to reduce Penn employees’ health care spending, and improve the “overall value that they are getting out of their health care.”
OnDemand, which is now in its tenth year of operation, developed as the first telehealth initiative with audio-video in the regions. The pilot program, initially named First Call, was developed into a 24/7 service model in the span of “six months to a year,” according to O’Malley.
“We asked every single patient that came through: ‘What would you have done without this service, without Penn Medicine OnDemand?’ By asking that question, we were able to identify how many of them would have otherwise gone to the emergency room, and then really build the business case for this model,” O’Malley said.
