As a nurse manager, Lizanne doesn’t have time to be sick. When she isn’t in a meeting, she’s commuting two and a half hours during long, demanding workdays. She also has diverticulitis—a condition in which small pouches that form in the digestive tract become inflamed or infected—and spent a week in the hospital for pain and complications.

A few weeks after that hospital stay, Lizanne felt intense stomach pain after she arrived at work. “I tried to change into my work shoes, and it was too painful to even bend over. I just didn’t feel right,” she says.

Lizanne’s regular doctor was more than an hour away back home, and trying to find someone else who would see her that day would be difficult. She also didn’t like the idea of waiting at an urgent care center.

That’s when a coworker suggested she schedule a Virtual Urgent Care appointment using the NYU Langone Health app. Lizanne quickly downloaded the app, and within the hour, she had an appointment with Daniel Herbert-Cohen, MD.

Dr. Herbert-Cohen asked Lizanne to describe her symptoms and pain level, and asked about her medical history. He determined that her symptoms warranted a trip to the emergency department and—according to Virtual Urgent Care’s standard practices—he notified them of Lizanne’s impending arrival. There, doctors determined she had developed a fever caused by a new episode of diverticulitis, and she was admitted overnight so she could be treated with intravenous antibiotics and fluids.

“Virtual Urgent Care allowed me to have a quick appointment in between meetings. It was very convenient, and I was able to fit it into my workday.”—Lizanne, Age 54

By the next morning, doctors determined that Lizanne was doing well enough to be released. She credits her Virtual Urgent Care visit, which lasted only 15 minutes, with saving time and connecting her quickly with the best treatment.

“Virtual Urgent Care allowed me to have a quick appointment in between meetings,” she said. “If it weren’t for Virtual Urgent Care, I would have stuck it out all day at work, gotten sicker, and would have needed longer to recover.”