PHOTO | ATRIUM HEALTH

Atrium Health’s Mobile Emergency Department is dispatching its rolling hospital to treat patients in Charlotte to free hospital bed space.

Atrium Health’s rolling hospital is treating Charlotte patients.

The Mobile Emergency Department, or MED-1, deployed the vehicle to Carolinas Medical Center and Levine Children’s Hospital to help treat less critical patients and add bed space. In the Charlotte area and around the country, pediatric and adult emergency rooms are experiencing an increase in patients with flu and other viral illnesses that were less prevalent at the height of the global COVID pandemic when masking and social distancing were in place.

“We are grateful to work for a health care system that has invested into an asset to have a mobile hospital like MED-1 at the ready to deploy in circumstances such as those we are facing now,” said Vicki Block, senior vice president and Central Market President for Atrium Health. “Atrium Health Carolinas Medical Center is not immune to the volume hospitals are currently experiencing around the country and, as the region’s only Level I Trauma Center, we must be ready for anything and everything that could come through our doors.”

This is the second time Atrium Health sent out the vehicle in the Charlotte area to support its facilities. In January 2021, the state-of-the-art emergency department was deployed to help with a surge of COVID patients at Atrium Health Pineville.

After Hurricane Florence hit in 2018, the mobile unit was dispatched to Pender County after Pender Memorial Hospital closed temporarily.
In 2005, the first MED-1 was deployed for about two months to coastal Mississippi during Hurricane Katrina, where 7,500 patients were treated for conditions ranging from heart attacks and strokes to serious infections.  

Based in Charlotte, the mobile hospital consists of 14 acute beds and a two-bed operating room and provides comprehensive care onsite of a disaster, mass casualty incident, or community event. The initiative is an extension of Atrium Health’s “for all” mission to improve health and improve healing to area residents.

This mobile facility includes digital X-ray, ultrasound, lab, pharmacy, and other equipment necessary to operate an emergency department. Nurses, doctors, trauma surgeons, paramedics and certified registered nurse anesthetist will also be deployed. In addition, information services support personnel and other staff including, but not limited to, the emergency, intensive care unit and surgical departments will be assigned.  

Treatments offered might include rashes, ear pain, lacerations, and minor sprains among other ailments. Patients can also receive lab work, medication refills, or X-rays. Patients will continue to go directly to the hospital in the case of an unexpected health event and will be directed by staff from there.

“Community members know Atrium Health Levine Children’s Hospital as a trusted partner to provide the best care for their children, including emergency care, and we won’t let them down despite the increase in volume due to an unprecedented viral season,” said Callie Dobbins, senior vice president at Levine Children’s Hospital. “We are grateful and fortunate to have access to Atrium Health MED-1.”

Aaliyah Bowden, who covers health for The Post, is a Report For America corps member.

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