The Field Hospital

(AKA Field Medical Station - SECAUCUS)

By mid-March of 2020 it became clear that the sheer volume of patients seriously stricken by COVID 19 were overwhelming hospitals in New Jersey (particularly in the North and Central regions of the state). A number of plans and administrative actions were put in place to help support hospitals healing with the overwhelming number of patients. This included stopping all elective surgeries through executive action by the governor, making additional healthcare professionals available through emergency licensing of out of state and retired personnel, and obtaining additional equipment from the strategic national stockpile (SNS) particularly personal protective equipment (PPE) and ventilators.

NJ also obtained from the SNS multiple Federal Medical Station caches that could be used to create lower acuity stand-alone medical facilities that could be used to "decant" patients from the acute care hospitals. Originally it was hoped that these FMS's would take non-COVID patients who remained in the acute care hospitals. Work began in Mid-March with NJ's All Hazards Incident Management Team (AHIMT) from the NJ Office of Emergency Management (OEM) coordinating the locations, design, build out, and contracting for medical/non-medical services for three proposed Field Hospitals in New Jersey.

The first to be located at the Meadowlands Exposition Center in Secaucus, NJ was built in coordination with the Army Corp of Engineers and with the assistance of the NJ Army National Guard. 250 beds were configured with nursing stations and other essential functions in the 61,000 square foot facility. The NJ Department of Health (NJDOH) was tasked with overseeing the staffing and operation of these field hospitals once built. By March 31st NJDOH had designated liaisons for each of these facilities and temporarily hired professionals to act as the medical leadership dyad of chief nursing officer and chief medical officer for each facility. In the coming days over 200 medical and support personnel would join the FMS-Secaucus staff. Approximately 50 would come from the state's Army and Air Force National Guard including a cadre of physicians, physician assistants, nurses, social workers, and combat medic specialists (68-Whiskeys). The rest would be civilian volunteers who responded for a call for help and were hired through a staffing agency. It would operate under the license of University Hospital located in Newark NJ.

During the nearly 10 weeks of active operations FMS-Secaucus would receive nearly 300 patients from over 14 hospitals in Northern New Jersey. At peak (end of April) the census reached 85 patients. By mid-June the FMS had closed operations in Secaucus and moved to a former rehabilitation hospital building owned by East Orange General Hospital. It was redesignated as an Alternative Care Site (ACS-East Orange) and prepared for an additional mission of housing and supporting medically vulnerable individuals who needed to isolate or quarantine due to COVID 19. By August the facility stopped operations but was maintained in a ready-state through the winter of 2020-21 should additional bed space be needed. During that time it also served as a supply depot and staging location for NJDOH's initial Rapid Deployment Testing Teams who were using the recently available point of care tests to identify COVID positive patients in designated "hot spots".

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