OhioHealth Mansfield Hospital, OhioHealth Shelby Hospital and OhioHealth Emergency Care – Ontario will be placing tents outside their respective emergency departments in order to prepare for a significant increase in emergency patients, due to COVID-19. The goal of the tents is to quickly determine patients who have flu-like symptoms from those who do not.These tents are NOT test sites for COVID-19 screening.
At times, OhioHealth’s emergency departments experience surges, due to multi-vehicle or bus accidents or other reasons. The tents at all three locations will be used if a significant surge in emergency patients occurs due to COVID-19 and outside triage is needed. The tents will remain up until the risk of patient surge is no longer a concern.
At Mansfield Hospital, the vehicle lane normally used to drop off emergency patients has been closed to accommodate the tents. Signage is posted to designate the new drop-off area near the emergency entrance.
The Mansfield Hospital tents will be used in the coming week to pilot workflows while the number of emergency patients remains at normal levels. The emergency department will be open during this pilot. After completing the pilot, the emergency department will return to patients coming first through the emergency entrance.
How the tents will work: When a patient comes to the emergency department for treatment of an injury or other reason, they will first enter the triage tent where they will be quickly screened. Depending on the result, the patient will either be directed to the normal intake desk inside the ED or into a secondary tent. This will help limit the exposure to other members of the community and care team.
In this unprecedented time, OhioHealth’s main focus continues to be health and safety of its patients, associates and medical staff. OhioHealth will continue to make preparations and take precautions to keep the community safe.