Columbus now has an outpatient facility to treat coronavirus. Here are the details.
What’s believed to be the only facility in Columbus for outpatient coronavirus treatment opened Friday with the goal of reducing the global pandemic’s local number of victims and hospitalizations.
MercyMed officials won’t disclose yet the number of COVID-19 patients with appointments at the nonprofit, Christian-based clinic on Second Avenue, but this much is clear:
The new service arose out of an alarming number of diagnoses from the mass testing MercyMed conducted April 3-6 in the parking lot of Cascade Hills Church.
“We were surprised by the amount of positives we had from those who probably wouldn’t have qualified (for testing) at the health department,” Dr. Grant Scarborough, founder and executive director of MercyMed, told the Ledger-Enquirer.
With help from about 120 volunteers, more than 1,200 area residents were tested during those four days, MercyMed development director Billy Holbrook said.
Holbrook estimated the testing resulted in a deficit for MercyMed of $10,000 to $15,000, although donations have helped.
“We acted first on faith that the Lord would provide for us,” he said. “We were able to recoup some of our costs through insurance billing at the event itself, and that helped us to offset the cost of paying for the uninsured.”
A renovation to part of the clinic totaling around $5,000 was completed in two days at cost by Ben B. Gordy Construction of Columbus, which had won the contract to build MercyMed’s facility four years ago, Holbrook said.
But the expenses for caring for these patients — and for how long — are to be determined.
“We want to be able to innovate quickly to adapt to what the needs are for our patients,” Holbrook said. “We’ve got great donors who have been super generous already, as we would like them to continue to do that so we can continue to respond quickly.”
As of Thursday, it was too early to disclose how many people tested by MercyMed were diagnosed with the coronavirus, because approximately one-fourth of the prospective patients hadn’t been contacted with their result yet, Holbrook said. But the early data showed reason to take further action.
“We believe COVID is going to be unfortunately around for a long time,” he said. “… From the positive results that came back from our event, we wanted to provide them an option for outpatient care.”
Georgia Department of Public Health statistics indicate MercyMed’s mass testing contributed to Muscogee County’s number of reported coronavirus cases nearly doubling in seven hours Wednesday, from 56 at noon to 94 at 7 p.m. That number increased to 127, with three deaths, by noon Friday.
The treatment
MercyMed will use a treatment protocol written in collaboration with four doctors — specializing in cardiology, ophthalmology, infectious disease and internal medicine and pediatrics — and adapted from the Christ Health Center in Birmingham, Holbrook said.
The plan includes communication with the patient’s primary care provider.
Patients will be divided into high-risk and low-risk groups with symptoms and without symptoms. MercyMed has teams to also address the mental, social and spiritual needs of patients, Scarborough said.
High-risk patients could receive a regimen of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin, which has shown encouraging results at Christ Health Center in Birmingham for keeping patients healthy enough to not be hospitalized, Scarborough said.
They aren’t part of a study now, but Scarborough is exploring that possibility, he said.
MercyMed, aided by Mercer University medical school students, will call asymptomatic patients each day to track their symptoms.
“The majority of folks who get it are asymptomatic carriers,” Scarborough said. “… Now that they know they have it, we can convince them to stay home so they don’t spread it.”
In the rear of the clinic, accessed from the parking lot by a back door, MercyMed has isolated two of its 12 exam rooms and sealed it off with plastic sheeting from the rest of the building to treat the coronavirus patients.
Blood pressure and temperature checks, EKGs and bloodwork will be done. The COVID-19 section also has portable machines for imaging the lungs of patients. MercyMed is renting the X-ray unit; the ultrasound unit was donated, Holbrook said.
“We’ll probably dispense some medication here,” Holbrook said, “so they don’t have to go to the pharmacy.”
The COVID-19 exam rooms will be disinfected after each appointment, Scarborough said.
The ventilation system was adapted to create negative air pressure to lessen the spread of the virus.
Follow-up exams will be conducted 10 days later, Scarborough said.
No walk-ins will be accepted, and the appointments are scheduled for only the patients who were diagnosed through MercyMed’s testing, as of now, Holbrook said.
“We want to be here for them,” he said.
Scarborough added, “There’s a lot of anxiety in the community about what’s going on. … I’ve talked to a lot of folks on the phone who were crying.”
But the donors and volunteers who helped provide the testing and the outpatient treatment have produced this hopeful development.
“I think we’re able to do some things other communities can’t because we have these partnerships and friendships,” Scarborough said.
HOW TO HELP
To donate to MercyMed and help with its treatment of coronavirus patients, call 706-507-9209 or visit MercyMedColumbus.com.
This story was originally published April 10, 2020 at 3:43 PM.
