Protect Your Lung Health During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Whether you experience an injury, minor illness or simply need a wellness exam, the most important step you can take is getting the care you need. That way, you can find trained experts for your specific medical needs, stay ahead of potential health issues or even help prevent your condition from worsening. 

With primary, virtual, urgent and emergency care services available, as well as retail pharmacies, how do you decide which type of care is best for your medical situation? Learn the differences between each type of medical service so you don’t delay and get care right away. 

Local Pharmacies 

If you are ill and have minor symptoms, over-the-counter medications can help you feel better. At your local retail pharmacy, you can find over-the-counter treatments for minor conditions like colds. If your symptoms worsen or do not go away with over-the-counter treatments, contact your primary care team or visit an urgent care location. 

Local pharmacies also carry at-home COVID-19 tests, offering a convenient testing option for people who have been exposed or are experiencing mild symptoms of COVID-19. 

Virtual Care 

Whether you have a busy schedule or are just looking for a more convenient option, virtual appointments are an easy way to keep up with your health from anywhere. 

At Wellstar, we offer virtual visits with both primary care clinicians and specialists—no matter if you are an established patient or not. Connect with your Wellstar care team over the phone or with video on a computer, smartphone or tablet. 

If you’re an established patient, simply request a virtual visit through MyChart. If you don’t have an account, it’s easy to sign up for MyChart and keep all of your important health information in one secure space. You can also call your physician’s office directly and request a virtual appointment over the phone. 

These days, many types of appointments can be done virtually, including consultations, care for chronic conditions and prescription management. In addition to virtual primary and specialty care appointments, we also provide a Virtual Urgent Care service for minor medical concerns. 

While virtual care is a convenient way to stay well, it should never be used in place of emergency care. If you are experiencing a life-threatening medical emergency, call 911 right away. 

Primary Care 

Primary care is ongoing, comprehensive care and preventative medicine that helps you live a full, healthy life. 

Your primary care clinician—either an internal or family medicine physician, pediatrician or OB/GYN, depending on your age and medical needs—gets to know you and your health history on a deeper level. That means they have a more accurate view of your overall wellness. 

Services include: 

• Annual wellness exams 
• Health screenings, labs and imaging 
• Care for chronic conditions, such as diabetes or high blood pressure 
• Immunizations for children and adults 
• Treatment for acute illness, such as the flu or colds 
• Coordinating care with other specialists 
• Physical and mental health concerns, such as weight loss or anxiety 

Find a Wellstar primary care location in your neighborhood. 

Urgent Care 

If you’re dealing with a minor injury or illness or need care after your physician’s regular office hours, going to urgent care is often the right choice. Wellstar Urgent Care Centers provide quick, convenient care for non-emergency medical conditions. 

We also offer Virtual Urgent Care, which provides virtual health visits for minor medical concerns from the comfort and convenience of home. 

Wellstar Urgent Care provides: 

• Care for minor illnesses and injuries, such as coughs, colds, sprains and broken bones 
• Treatment for medical issues like bites, burns and cuts 
• COVID-19 testing and evaluation for patients 12 and older 
• Lab and X-rays 
• Sports physicals 
• Occupational health services 
• Worker’s compensation services 

Find a Wellstar urgent care location near you or make a virtual urgent care appointment. 

Emergency Care 

In a life-threatening medical emergency, every second counts. Never put off getting the proper care when lives are on the line. Remember, driving yourself to the emergency department (ED) may delay care, so call 911 for the fastest access to emergency care. 

When the unexpected happens, Wellstar is always ready in a medical emergency. Our trained team provides expert emergency care 24 hours a day for people of all ages. We even have several pediatric emergency room locations, specifically designed to treat children. 

Recognize the signs of a medical emergency: 

• Difficulty breathing or shortness of breath 
• Chest discomfort or pain 
• Severe abdominal pain 
• Fainting or loss of consciousness 
• Sudden dizziness, weakness or vision changes 
• Sudden, severe pain 
• Uncontrolled or severe bleeding 
• Choking, coughing up blood or severe vomiting 
• Suicidal or homicidal thoughts 
• Changes in mental status, such as confusion or unusual behavior 
• Traumatic injury due to a motor vehicle or other accidents 

Find a Wellstar emergency department close to you. Remember, call 911 right away in a medical emergency. That way, care can begin sooner during the crucial time it takes to be transported to the hospital. 

From catching cancer to following through with expert care, Wellstar ensures patients never have to fight lung cancer alone.

Wellstar is dedicated to early intervention in lung cancer, which improves outcomes for patients. After detection of an abnormality on a CT scan, patients are immediately surrounded with an interdisciplinary support team devoted to their well-being.

Identifying lung cancer early

If you are at increased risk for developing lung cancer, talk to your care team about screenings. With a low-dose CT scan of the chest, it only takes a few seconds to check in on your lung health. These screenings are offered at several Wellstar imaging centers.

The United States Preventive Services Task Force has revised lung screening guidelines. Patients may qualify for screening if they are 50 to 80 years old and smoked for 20 years. If they are a former smoker, they may qualify if they quit less than 15 years ago.

“Lung screening improves a person’s chances of detecting a lung cancer at an early stage and being cured of that cancer,” said Wellstar Thoracic Surgeon Dr. William Mayfield.

Because finding cancer and starting treatment sooner can be life-saving, Wellstar has invested in the incidental nodule program. When people come into a hospital seeking care for something else—whether that be a health condition like appendicitis or a traumatic event like a motorcycle accident—they might get a scan of the abdomen or chest that also shows portions of the lungs.

Using artificial intelligence, reports of those scans are fed to report coordinators, categorized based on their risk level, and if the patient is higher-risk, forwarded to nurse navigators for review. Nurse navigators consult with physicians about the findings, and Wellstar can then initiate care if cancer is found.

“People that come to the hospital for other problems may also be walking around with a lung cancer they didn’t know about,” Dr. Mayfield said.

The program, which started in fall 2020, has identified a total of 148 lung cancers and 14 other types of cancer, as of October 2024.

“Now those people are getting care, and it’s quite likely those cancers would have been missed,” Dr. Mayfield said.

Wellstar is developing another incidental nodule program for the abdominal area, which could lead to the discovery of several cancers including ovarian, kidney, bladder and liver cancers.

The program aligns with the Wellstar mission of enhancing the health and well-being of every person we serve.

“It was the right thing to do for the community. If we miss these cancers, it is a broken promise to the patient,” Dr. Mayfield said.

Then, if cancer is found, Wellstar “closes the loop” by initiating treatment and connecting the patient with resources, Dr. Mayfield said.

Expert care and support at every step

From the very beginning, lung cancer patients at Wellstar are surrounded by a team of experts. Rather than go through the time-consuming process of driving to multiple appointments with different specialists, patients meet with all these physicians in one place.

The Wellstar Lung Cancer STAT Clinic, at Wellstar Cobb, Douglas, Kennestone Regional, North Fulton and Paulding medical centers, as well as the Thoracic NOW Clinic at Wellstar MCG Health Medical Center, give patients immediate access to specialists in medical oncology, radiation oncology, pulmonary medicine and thoracic surgery.

“No other health system does multidisciplinary care the way Wellstar does,” Dr. Mayfield said.

Getting multiple expert opinions from the start not only gives patients peace of mind, it speeds up treatment, too. In the United States, the average time between an abnormal scan and the beginning of treatment is 95 days, Dr. Mayfield said. The STAT Clinic reduces that time to as little as 14 days. Time-to-treatment affects long-term survival in lung cancer patients, Dr. Mayfield said—a six-week delay can reduce five-year survival by up to 13%, according to research from the Cleveland Clinic.

“Time really does matter in the treatment and diagnosis of lung cancer,” Dr. Mayfield said.

High-tech surgery options

For many patients, surgery is a crucial part of lung cancer treatment. Wellstar offers several minimally invasive options, reducing recovery time for patients.

Dr. Mayfield said more than 90% of lung cancer surgeries at Wellstar are performed using either the da Vinci Surgical System or Video Assisted Thoracic Surgery techniques (VATS).

Minimally invasive surgeries reduce pain, scarring, blood loss and infection, as well as time to recover—getting patients back to work and other routines quicker.

The da Vinci system is equipped with 3D cameras and instruments that can make very intricate, precise movements, allowing for shorter incisions and more accurate surgery. Some patients can leave the hospital as early as the next day.

For biopsies, Wellstar has completed 500 procedures using the Ion system, a robotic-assisted platform.

To prevent lung cancer and keep your lungs healthy, talk to your primary care team and follow a few tips, such as avoiding smoking and getting your exercise. Learn more about treatments on our cancer care page.

Innovative technology at Wellstar is offering patients a minimally invasive option for lung biopsies, reducing complications and helping expedite lung cancer treatment.

The Ion system is a robotic-assisted platform for performing lung biopsies. If a lung cancer screening or any other CT scan shows a suspicious nodule, providers will need to perform a biopsy to determine if the patient has lung cancer and how to proceed with care.

“Those nodules may not be cancer, but in certain situations we still need to know what it is,” said Wellstar Pulmonologist Dr. Timothy Udoji. “The Ion technology helps us biopsy those nodules to get an answer so that additional workup can be done immediately. If it is cancer, we want to catch it at an early stage.”

The system uses a three-dimensional spatial recognition technology that helps guide a catheter down the airway, deep into the lung, all the way to small nodules where biopsies can be performed. The robotic catheter maintains its shape and stability throughout the biopsy process significantly improving diagnostic yield compared to other modalities.

“The better the image and the more certainty we have of the spatial location of the catheter, the better we can avoid complications by making sure we are not too close to a blood vessel or the edge of the lung,” said Wellstar Thoracic Surgeon Dr. Daniel Fortes.

During the biopsy, providers can also use the Ion system to mark an area in the lung, making it easier to find later during surgery.

“If something is very small and hard to find in surgery, Ion can be used to mark that area with dye, or contrast, that allows us to find it in surgery,” Dr. Fortes said. “With this technology added to the surgical robotic system in the operating room, we can better identify those lesions and remove smaller portions of lung, also called segments.”

Technology to help provide peace of mind

The Ion system also has further reach than previous technologies and is able to more easily biopsy nodules in the peripheral areas of the lung. For many cancer patients, this will allow them to initiate care earlier and improve their outcomes, as well as give them peace of mind during the treatment process.

“Mental health impacts physical health. We are able to confidently biopsy and identify these nodules and that means a lot for our patients,” Dr. Udoji said. “Now, with this new technology we are able to get a biopsy done much earlier which has huge outcome implications for malignant nodules.”

At Wellstar, cancer care is tailored for each patient. In the Wellstar STAT Clinic for Lung Cancer, patients meet with multiple specialists at once to discuss their care options and create a personalized treatment plan. Specialists in the STAT Clinics, which are located at Wellstar Cobb, Douglas, Kennestone Regional, North Fulton, Paulding and West Georgia medical centers, as well as Cherokee Health Park, work with patients to determine the optimal course of treatment and will talk with patients and families about biopsy options, including the Ion system. The STAT Clinics give patients the opportunity to have their diagnoses managed right away, and literature shows that the clinics’ diagnostic and treatment model improves outcomes for patients.

The Ion system is in use at Wellstar Kennestone Regional Medical Center, where the team has completed more than 500 procedures. This system is also now available at Wellstar West Georgia Medical Center and Wellstar Douglas Medical Center. Learn more about lung cancer care at wellstar.org/lungcancer and ask your primary care provider or pulmonologist if you have questions or are seeking care for lung health. Learn more about pulmonary care at wellstar.org/pulmonary.