MUSC Health reduces entry points to hospitals, tightens visitation and screening

CHARLESTON, S.C. (March 16, 2020) –MUSC Health will reduce the number of entry points and implement tighter visitation policies for all hospitals on the peninsula.

The changes take effect at 8 a.m. on March 17. Patients seeking emergency treatment should continue to seek care at any MUSC Health emergency department.

The entry points for MUSC Health facilities are as follows:

MUSC Shawn Jenkins Children’s Hospital and Pearl Tourville Women’s Pavilion
Pediatric Emergency Department
Connector entrance from the McClennan Banks parking garage
No public access - main lobby entrance

MUSC Health will screen all visitors at tented/covered stations outside the hospitals. Visitors and vendors will be asked COVID-19 screening questions prior to gaining access to any hospital facility. Visitors considered high-risk for COVID-19 exposure or infection will be asked not to enter and advised to access musc.care, the MUSC Health Virtual Urgent Care platform, for further evaluation.

For visitors with risk factors, MUSC Health officials will consider extenuating visitor circumstances, such as a gravely ill loved one. In those circumstances, visitors who are granted access to visit a patient in the facility will be required to wear a mask at all times.

Each adult patient is asked to identify one visitor only. No other family members will be permitted into the hospital or allowed to visit. MUSC Health officials will consider extenuating visitor circumstances, such as the need to visit a gravely ill loved one.

Only vendors who are participating in patient care or hospital environmental maintenance will be allowed to enter MUSC Health hospitals.

These restrictions will remain in place until further notice. The safety and wellbeing of MUSC Health patients and care team members are imperative; while we apologize for these inconveniences, MUSC Health hopes the community will understand these temporary policies meant to mitigate the risk of COVID-19 exposure.

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About MUSC

Founded in 1824 in Charleston, MUSC is the oldest medical school in the South, as well as the state’s only integrated, academic health sciences center with a unique charge to serve the state through education, research and patient care. Each year, MUSC educates and trains more than 3,000 students and nearly 800 residents in six colleges: Dental Medicine, Graduate Studies, Health Professions, Medicine, Nursing and Pharmacy. The state’s leader in obtaining biomedical research funds, in fiscal year 2019, MUSC set a new high, bringing in more than $284 million. For information on academic programs, visit musc.edu.

As the clinical health system of the Medical University of South Carolina, MUSC Health is dedicated to delivering the highest quality patient care available, while training generations of competent, compassionate health care providers to serve the people of South Carolina and beyond. Comprising some 1,600 beds, more than 100 outreach sites, the MUSC College of Medicine, the physicians’ practice plan, and nearly 275 telehealth locations, MUSC Health owns and operates eight hospitals situated in Charleston, Chester, Florence, Lancaster and Marion counties. In 2019, for the fifth consecutive year, U.S. News & World Report named MUSC Health the No. 1 hospital in South Carolina. To learn more about clinical patient services, visit muschealth.org.

MUSC and its affiliates have collective annual budgets of $3.2 billion. The more than 17,000 MUSC team members include world-class faculty, physicians, specialty providers and scientists who deliver groundbreaking education, research, technology and patient care.