Northwell Health has implemented a new screening tool for patients at risk for firearm-related violence.
The screening process collects information on a patient’s proximity to gun violence and has been made available to healthcare organizations across the country through a digital health record system called Epic.
The system is used to order tests, prescribe medications and currently serves 325 million patients. The new tool was made available on June 1, at the start of gun violence awareness month.
Data fromJohns Hopkins Universityshows that firearms were the fourth highest cause of death among New York’s children and minors in 2023. In 2022, 25 % of homicides in the state were caused by guns.
Reports fromNews 12andLong Island Life & Politicsshow that gun violence has slowly risen across Nassau and Suffolk Counties between 2025 and 2026, despite records showing the opposite from Gov. Kathy Hochul’s office, which touted a decline in gun violence in 2025.
Numbers from the Gun Involved Violence Elimination initiative from May 2026 show that Nassau County saw an increase of two shooting incidents from last year, and that two people were killed by firearms in 2026, up from one individual in 2025.
Chethan Sathya, director of Northwell Health’s Center for Gun Violence Prevention, said he has seen an overall decline in these numbers across the state after Northwell began implementing its new screening tool.
Sathya said he understands gun violence on a personal level. Before coming into his current director role at Northwell, he previously served as a pediatric trauma surgeon in Chicago andNew York, where he treated nearly five to 10 children with gunshot wounds each week.
After completing a fellowship at Northwestern University, Sathya said he was hired by Northwell Health, which was looking to scale up its gun violence prevention efforts at the same time.
“When I got to Northwell in 2019, our leadership prioritized wanting to take on gun violence prevention as an entire health system,” Sathya said. “They wanted to change the game of how we view it as a public health issue.”
Source: LI Press
