Affinity Health Partners North Carolina Critical Access Hospital Announces Respiratory Clinic for COVID-19
DALLAS, March 24, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Affinity Health Partners North Carolina facility, Washington Regional Medical Center, announced the hospital repurposed its Outpatient Department as a Respiratory Clinic for all acute respiratory illnesses and COVID-19 screening. Dr. Lee Anne Sorto, DNP, FNP-C, WRMC's Clinical Operations Administrator, said: "This will allow patients who are concerned they may have COVID-19 to be screened by a healthcare professional in a safe, isolated environment." The guidelines for testing issued by the CDC and can be viewed at https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/symptoms-testing/testing.html.
The Outpatient Respiratory Clinic hours of operations are 8 a.m. - 5 p.m. Monday – Friday to serve patients on a walk-in basis. The clinic can see patients from area primary care providers' offices, urgent care centers, other hospitals, and health departments, which are presenting with fever and cough, for facilities that are concerned about where to direct their patients to be screened. "We believe this will allow our local primary care and specialty care offices to stay operational as long as possible through screening their patients ahead of their appointment times for new-onset cough or worsening cough with fever without fear of turning their patients away to stay at home unscreened," said Dr. Sorto.
The clinic offers patient education on a variety of acute respiratory illnesses if determined; the patient does not require COVID-19 testing. If a patient is screened and found to be positive for COVID-19, the hospital's specially trained staff will educate the patient on self-quarantine requirements, symptom monitoring, and follow up care during the course of the virus to ensure patient safety and compliance. Testing will be coordinated with the Martin-Tyrrell-Washington District Health Department staff to assist with notification and regional tracking for the CDC.
About Affinity Health Partners: Affinity Health Partners' mission is to improve the rural health systems' performance with the highest value services customized to each of our owned and operated facilities' unique needs. As leaders in the healthcare industry, we understand how critical it is first to appreciate our rural health systems and their challenges and then to execute the rural health network strategy in a way that helps our facilities become more integrated and not isolated. For more information, please call our main number (800) 264-0846 or visit our website www.affinity-hp.net or email info@affinity-hp.net.
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SOURCE Affinity Health Partners
