CHARLOTTE, N.C. — A visit to Atrium Health’s emergency department and you will now find tents set up outside for Coronavirus treatment. The purpose is to care for those patients with mild symptoms without them ever stepping foot inside the main hospital.
These triage tents were assembled with the help of Team Rubicon. The tent is 2,500 square feet, includes 13 patients bays, along with oxygen monitors and computer stations for nurses. Atrium Health says the space will be cleaned and disinfected 24 hours a day.
Now that Mecklenburg County has decided a field hospital is no longer a necessity at the moment these triage tents will still serve as solution to free up some of the hospital beds while Lalso allowing healthcare providers to continue to care for COVID-19 patients efficiently and safely away from the hospital.
An earlier proposed field hospital had been requested by leadership of both Atrium Health and competing Novant Health. Initially, hospital leaderships had requested a 3,000 bed facility at a location such as the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.
The plan was later downsized to a facility near uptown Charlotte for several hundred beds. The Charlotte Convention Center was proposed a possible location.
Earlier this week, another revision to the proposal did away with the need for an external, field hospital.
