Atlantic Health, Including Morristown Medical Center, Tightens Hospital Visit Rules

NORTH JERSEY — Atlantic Health System, which includes the Morristown and Overlook medical centers, tightened visitor rules at its hospitals.

The health provider previously allowed non-COVID, in-patient adults to have two visitors. As of Thursday, they can only have one.

Atlantic Health System made the change to stay in alignment with hospitals across the state, in accordance with the New Jersey Hospital Association, according to an AHS spokesperson.

No visitors are allowed for confirmed COVID-19 patients or those under investigation for the virus, except in cases the care team approves. Two visitors are permitted for patients in end-0f-life care, and visitors may change throughout the day.

See full visitor regulations here.

The New Jersey Hospital Association developed a color-coded system to guide hospitals' visitor policies. In its most recent update Wednesday, all regions in the Garden State were coded yellow. Green allows visitors with some limits, yellow indicates limited visits and red means no visitors, with certain exceptions.

The yellow code means the following:

• No visitors are allowed for COVID-19 patients, except for circumstances approved by the care team.
• No visitors are allowed for those who are immunocompromised, except for circumstances approved by the care team.
• Other types of patients may have one visitor at a time. They must follow requirements on masking, symptom screening and other precautions.

Atlantic Health System's hospitals have the following capacities in their ICUs as of Tuesday afternoon, according to the Department of Health and Human Services:

• Morristown Medical Center: 24.68 percent of ICU beds available
• Overlook Medical Center, Summit: 50.72 percent of ICU beds available
• Chilton Medical Center, Pompton Plains: 57.58 percent of ICU beds available
• Hackettstown Medical Center: 50 percent of ICU beds available
• Newton Medical Center: 50 percent of ICU beds available

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