Morristown Doctors Warn Of The Dangers Of Putting Off Care

MORRISTOWN, NJ – Emergency departments across Atlantic Health’s hospitals remain safe for every patient who enters, and officials say reconfigured processes and facilities are in place to optimize safety and improve the patient experience so prospective patients should not delay treatment.

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“It’s critical the patients with urgent medical issues continue to come to the ED for care.
We have created processes and configured our facility to maximize the safety and
effective delivery of care for all of our patients,” said Dan Wiener, MD, Chair, Department
of Emergency Medicine at Morristown Medical Center.

All care is delivered with strict rules around social distancing, universal mask wearing,
rigorously enforced hand hygiene and advanced cleaning practices for the entire facility, officials said.

All patients will be triaged at the point of entry including taking their temperature and asking a series of health questions, no matter what the reason for the visit. Once that has occurred, a nurse escorts the patient to the appropriate treatment area. This will reduce the use of communal waiting rooms and the possibility of close-contact in areas such as hallways. All departments have specialized treatment areas for COVID-19 and other contagious illnesses.

“I cannot emphasize enough that the long and short-term negative impacts of delaying
urgent care are far greater than the risk of contracting COVID-19 in the hospital,” Wiener said.

Delays in seeking urgent care can result in more extensive care and longer recovery than
might have been needed, may result in lifelong debilitation or can be fatal in cases of
sepsis, heart attack or stroke, officials said.

In New Jersey and nationwide, healthcare providers have observed an alarming trend of delay of care for many non-COVID conditions.

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