McLaren Northern Michigan – Cheboygan Campus, the multispecialty medical campus and freestanding emergency department, has resumed normal operations Friday, September 15 at 9 a.m. following a temporary closure due to the ‘shelter in place’ declaration resulting from Wednesday’s Tissue Depot fire and air quality concerns.
The clinical and support teams within the campus’s emergency department, however, in order to continue providing emergency medical care and services to a steady flow of patients, remained operational throughout the order, with department personnel donning an adequate level of personal protection equipment.
“First responders and our own emergency department staff deserve special recognition for the level of dedication and commitment they exhibited while continuing to care for the community on Wednesday evening and throughout Thursday,” said Chad Grant, McLaren Health Care Chief Operating Officer and McLaren Northern Michigan Interim President and CEO. “Sincere thanks and gratitude are also owed to all responders of this dangerous incident, and everyone who managed the situation.”
Following the ‘shelter in place’ declaration by Region Seven Emergency Management officers, employees of outpatient services at McLaren Northern Michigan – Cheboygan Campus returned home, and those departments temporarily closed. And although the emergency department remained operational, it did so with additional measures in place to ensure a safe environment in which to provide patient care was maintained.
The hospital shut down its air exchange system in order to keep contaminants out of the building, and monitoring equipment was promptly placed in the department’s parking lot by the Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA’s air contaminant threshold of 30 parts per million was never reached. By Thursday morning, the equipment confirmed the measurement had decreased to three parts per million. The campus’s three-tiered air filtration system also showed no sign of smoke collection or damage, confirming that contaminants had not breached the interior.
In addition to the ER and emergency services, McLaren Northern Michigan – Cheboygan Campus also includes imaging services, cardiac and cancer rehabilitation, outpatient surgery, heart and vascular care, and a behavioral health unit.
Learn more about McLaren Northern Michigan – Cheboygan Campus at mclaren.org/cheboygan.
About McLaren Northern Michigan
McLaren Northern Michigan is a 202-bed regional referral center located in Petoskey, serving residents in 22 counties across northern Lower Michigan and the eastern part of the Upper Peninsula. More than 230 physicians represent nearly all medical and surgical specialties, enabling full-service care with an emphasis on cardiology, cancer, orthopedics and neurosciences. McLaren Northern Michigan is a certified Primary Stroke Center, as designated by the Joint Commission. The hospital has a network of primary care providers and specialty care clinics throughout the region, and an outpatient surgery center in Cheboygan. Learn more at mclaren.org/northernmichigan.
About McLaren Health Care
McLaren Health Care, headquartered in Grand Blanc, Michigan, is a $6.6 billion, fully integrated health care delivery system committed to quality, evidence-based patient care and cost efficiency. The McLaren system includes 13 hospitals in Michigan, ambulatory surgery centers, imaging centers, a 490-member employed primary and specialty care physician network, commercial and Medicaid HMOs covering more than 732,838 lives in Michigan and Indiana, home health, infusion and hospice providers, pharmacy services, a clinical laboratory network and a wholly owned medical malpractice insurance company. McLaren operates Michigan’s largest network of cancer centers and providers, anchored by the Karmanos Cancer Institute, one of only 54 National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer centers in the U.S. McLaren has 28,000 full-, part-time and contracted employees and more than 113,000 network providers throughout Michigan, Indiana and Ohio. Learn more at mclaren.org.