The Alliance of Automotive Service Providers of New Jersey (AASP/NJ) and Greco Publishing (event managers for AASP/NJ’s NORTHEAST Automotive Services Show) have teamed up to donate necessary supplies to the Meadowlands Exposition Center (MEC) of Secaucus as the facility gears up to function as a temporary pop-up hospital during the coronavirus outbreak.
The MEC – which has been the home of NORTHEAST since the event relocated from Suffern, N.Y., in 2009 – will be housing non-COVID-19 patients. The facility was chosen as one of four locations across the Garden State by Governor Phil Murphy and the New Jersey State Police to house overflow patients from local hospitals as those locations accommodate an expected influx of coronavirus patients.
As the pop-up hospital was being built, Greco Publishing was alerted to the need for a badge system to allow hospital staff, patients and personnel access to and throughout the facility. NORTHEAST registration company IBK Software will provide the infrastructure to create a badge registration system for staff, while AASP/NJ and Greco Publishing are supplying lanyards and badge holders from the NORTHEAST 2020 show, originally scheduled for March 20-22 and rescheduled to August 21-23.
“When we were alerted by [MEC and IBK] of the need for badge holders and lanyards for this endeavor, our response was, ‘How soon would you like them?'” said Tom Greco, president of Greco Publishing, who coordinated with MEC, the U.S. Army and the state police to deliver the items Monday morning. “AASP/NJ members are more than happy to contribute whatever we can to help the coronavirus response effort in any way, and we were proud to donate NORTHEAST supplies for this initiative.”
Added AASP/NJ President Jerry McNee, “AASP/NJ is proud to assist however we can. We hope this helps hospital staff better navigate their new location as they devote themselves to treating patients in the weeks to come.”
To learn more about AASP/NJ’s contributions during the coronavirus response, visit aaspnj.org.
