CHARLOTTEANS OF THE YEAR
D R . K AT I E PA SSAR E T T I
As COVID loomed, the doctor in charge of Atrium Health’s infection response answered the call, within the hospital and outside it BY ANDY SMITH // PHOTOGRAPH BY LOGAN CYRUS
SIX YEARS AGO, Dr. Katie Passaretti answered a 3 a.m. call in July from Carolinas Medical Center. A patient in the emergency department had recently traveled to Liberia and, the ER doctor thought, might have contracted a contagious virus with a high mortality rate. Carolinas HealthCare System, since renamed Atrium Health,
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potentially had the first case of Ebola in the U.S. amid a pandemic in 2014. Passaretti, medical director of infection prevention for Atrium Health, is the person you call in this scenario. She immediately told the doctor how to isolate the patient, then headed in for the first of many stressful days. The patient turned out to have
malaria. It was the first national “ruleout” for Ebola, two months before the first U.S. case. Passaretti’s team used the false alarm to prepare dozens of facilities and tens of thousands of employees. She supplemented that work inside the hospitals with TV appearances, locally and nationally, to share clear information on what Ebola is and
