The coronavirus disease 2019 surge in New York City created an increased demand for palliative care (PC) services. In staff-limited settings such as safety net systems, and amid growing reports of health care worker illness, leveraging help from less-affected areas around the country may provide an untapped source of support. A national social media outreach effort recruited 413 telepalliative medicine volunteers (TPMVs). After expedited credentialing and onboarding of 67 TPMVs, a two-week pilot was initiated in partnership with five public health hospitals without any previous existing telehealth structure. The volunteers completed 109 PC consults in the pilot period. Survey feedback from TPMVs and on-site PC providers was largely positive, with areas of improvement identified around electronic health record navigation and continuity of care. This was a successful, proof of concept, and quality improvement initiative leveraging TPMVs from across the nation for a PC pandemic response in a safety net system.

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T he coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has highlighted the central importance of palliative care to our increasingly strained healthcare system. Palliative care is specialized care for people struggling with serious illnesses. Its aim is to improve the patient's quality of life by providing expert-level symptom management and skilled communication and by supporting caregivers to ensure patients and their families receive goal-concordant care. 1 Faced with a reality that patients with frailty and serious illness are the most vulnerable to critical illness and death, early inquiries into patient and family wishes were essential to avoid preventable suffering. To prevent spread