Atrium to expand healthcare services, add COVID-19 safety measures
Atrium Health announced plans Friday to expand healthcare services, including non-emergency surgeries and procedures, with “COVID-safe” care starting the week of April 27.
The announcement comes a day after Novant Health announced it would resume some non-emergency surgeries and procedures starting May 4.
Atrium is adding “extensive safety measures” to make sure its locations are “COVID-safe,” according to the hospital system.
Those measures include testing all patients for COVID-19 before any scheduled procedure, establishing dedicated facilities for treatment of non-coronavirus patients and using a COVID-19 virtual hospital to treat COVID-19 patients at their homes, according to Atrium.
“We’re pleased that the stay-at-home policies have been successful in diminishing the impact of COVID-19 locally,” Dr. Scott Rissmiller, Atrium’s chief physician executive, said in a statement.
Atrium and Novant began rescheduling non-essential surgeries, procedures and ambulatory appointments on March 18. The pause in non-essential procedures was a strategy to “conserve critical resources” for the COVID-19 outbreak, the hospital systems said at the time.
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