UAMS to Host Ebola Preparedness Symposium for Businesses Dec. 16
| LITTLE ROCK — A symposium entitled “What Businesses Should Know About Ebola Preparedness” will be presented Dec. 16 at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS).
The symposium will be 8:15 a.m. to 4 p.m. in the 12th floor auditorium of the Jackson T. Stephens Spine & Neurosciences Institute. The cost to attend is $50, which includes lunch and handout materials. Registration is open now and available online at: https://www.regonline.com/businessebolapreparedness. To ensure a lunch, registration must be received by Dec. 12.
The symposium is intended for corporate representatives from human resources, health and safety departments, legal departments, loss control and risk management, and executives.
The event is being presented by the UAMS Fay W. Boozman College of Public Health in partnership with the Arkansas Department of Health, the Centers for Toxicology and Environmental Health and the Rose Law Firm.
“Our intent with this symposium, in addition to imparting a basic understanding of the Ebola virus and the current outbreak in West Africa, is to address the questions that businesses may have, from contract and insurance liability to policy management and planning, when it comes to reacting to employees potentially being exposed to Ebola,” said Jay Gandy, Ph.D., chairman of the Department of Environmental & Occupational Health in the College of Public Health.
The event will begin with Nathaniel Smith, M.D., director of the Arkansas Department of Health, offering an overview of the disease and its transmission. Dirk Haselow, M.D., Ph.D., state epidemiologist with the Health Department, will address the state of the outbreak in West Africa and cases globally. The remainder of the day will offer attorneys and occupational health experts addressing health preparedness and legal questions, such as quarantine law, and policy planning from the perspective of both employers and employees.
“Our partners have already faced a flood of questions from clients and the general public and can offer guidance and advice on a number of issues that concern many aspects of corporate operations, from human resources to occupational safety,” said Gandy. “We want people to know what could be involved if exposure to Ebola is detected or even suspected and how companies can prepare for that possibility given the global nature of business today.”
UAMS is the state’s only health sciences university, with colleges of Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy, Health Professions and Public Health; a graduate school; a hospital; a main campus in Little Rock; a Northwest Arkansas regional campus in Fayetteville; a statewide network of regional campuses; and eight institutes: the Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute, Jackson T. Stephens Spine & Neurosciences Institute, Harvey & Bernice Jones Eye Institute, Psychiatric Research Institute, Donald W. Reynolds Institute on Aging, Translational Research Institute, Institute for Digital Health & Innovation and the Institute for Community Health Innovation. UAMS includes UAMS Health, a statewide health system that encompasses all of UAMS’ clinical enterprise. UAMS is the only adult Level 1 trauma center in the state. UAMS has 3,485 students, 915 medical residents and fellows, and seven dental residents. It is the state’s largest public employer with more than 11,000 employees, including 1,200 physicians who provide care to patients at UAMS, its regional campuses, Arkansas Children’s, the VA Medical Center and Baptist Health. Visit www.uams.edu or uamshealth.com. Find us on Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), YouTube or Instagram.###