Gainesville COVID-19 mobile units open

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Residents encouraged to still utilize home county services

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  • Photo by Ashkan Forouzani on Unsplash
    Photo by Ashkan Forouzani on Unsplash
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Northeast Georgia Health System has opened mobile units for people who are experiencing COVID-19 symptoms at the Gainesville and Braselton campuses.

“We are utilizing these mobile tents to have lower acuity patients who can walk and talk and have some respiratory symptoms,” said Angela Gary, Northeast Georgia Medical Center Executive Director of Trauma and Emergency Services. “And of course, trying to keep some of those respiratory symptom fevers outside of the emergency department to lessen some of the potential for cross contamination …”  

They are seeing 20-25 patients at the Gainesville campus and 18-20 in Braselton on average daily. If patients become sicker while they are in these mobile units, they would be transferred into the emergency department, Gary said.

Patients are highly encouraged to call ahead before visiting the mobile site. Gary said nine out of 10 times people show up unannounced.  

“We immediately give them a mask and immediately take them back into a private room, preferably negative pressure and then we start triage and assess in a closed area so we don’t waste any time and then secondly don’t expose others unnecessarily,” Gary said.

Chief Operating Officer for NGHS Michael Covert said they are trying to be responsive to Habersham Medical Center and other hospitals in the Northeast Georgia region. He highlighted the importance of patients being cared for in their home counties.  

“We’d rather have patients who could be cared for in that location of that hospital there rather than being brought in here and taxing the system from this standpoint,” he said.

The Hall County Government, City of Gainesville and healthcare leaders have passed a joint resolution which requests residents in their area to stay at home for at least 14 days to slow the spread of COVID-19.

As of March 30, Georgia Department of Public Health reported 34 cases of COVID-19 in Hall County.

“If we get into a situation where people wait until we are close to being overwhelmed before they start taking it seriously, it will be too late,” said Director, Public Relations & Marketing

 

TALKS WITH HMC

According to HMC Vice President of Business Development and Strategy Tyler Williams, there are no discussions between the two entities related to HMC transferring any COVID-19 patients down to Gainesville for treatment, however there in still a general collaborative effort according to Couch.

“We continue to work closely with Habersham Medical Center (HMC) through our affiliation for emergency and inpatient care. Since the same doctors who provide those services at Northeast Georgia Medical Center hospitals also provide care at HMC, they are able to share best practices that have worked in other locations in response to the evolving COVID-19 pandemic.”

Couch said they were able to share some personal protective equipment (PPE) including nearly 1,500 N95 respirator masks and a box of surgical masks provided to HMC.  

 

UPDATE ON HMC 

Williams said HMC is having twice daily COVID-19 Taskforce meetings which began March 16th. “These meetings allow the Taskforce to develop a proactive response to the virus so that we are not being reactive to the disease,” he said.

The first item on the agenda every day is PPE, as it will always be the priority as they work through this pandemic. “We are constantly monitoring our levels so that we have enough on-site to protect our patients and employees,” Williams said.

Physical access to the hospital continues to be another topic of discussion as well. HMC is currently not using telemedicine in their response to COVID-19.

However, they do offer Maternal-Fetal Medicine via telemedicine. This is an outpatient elective service and has been offered by HMC since 2018. “We are looking at utilizing telemedicine to gain access to pulmonology, but no decisions have been made,” Williams said.

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