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Jennifer Hunt, M.D., left, screens a patient for COVID-19 during a UAMS-led drive-through screening in Helena. Image by Bryan Clifton

UAMS Provides COVID-19 Screening to Helena, Delta Residents

April 3, 2020 | As the van carrying UAMS health care professionals arrived in Helena early April 2, residents of Helena and the surrounding Delta region were already lining up in their vehicles to receive the drive-through COVID-19 evaluation UAMS was about to provide.

By 9:45 a.m., the team from the main campus in Little Rock and from UAMS Family Medical Center at UAMS East Regional Campus in Helena were in place as the first patients rolled into the covered service bays of the old John Deere dealership being put into service for the four-hour outreach effort.

COVID-19 is caused by a new respiratory virus that has the potential for for severe illness and pneumonia in some people. Symptoms include fever, cough and shortness of breath.

When the evaluations concluded in Helena, the UAMS team had screened more than 120 patients.

“I thought it was an example of spectacular teamwork,” said Jennifer Hunt, M.D., chair of the UAMS Department of Pathology and director of the UAMS Triage Unit, who helped plan the outreach effort and lead it on site.

“I was thrilled with how well the event went. Going in we didn’t know what the volume would be. I think we hit exactly the right target. No one was turned away, and we were busy the whole time. The logistics were complicated, but the team pulled it off flawlessly. It also showed me our team is very adaptable and able adjust quickly to new challenges.”

Planning for the effort in Helena began on the Little Rock campus after a March 27 emergency operations command meeting.

“Some people, who were social distancing, were standing around talking after the meeting,” said Jay O. Howe, an attorney for the UAMS Office of General Counsel. “They were looking up at the map and discussing where we were not seeing reported cases, including eastern Arkansas. I was included in the conversation in the context of ‘Well, Jay O. is from Helena.’ I was asked if I knew people in Helena who could mobilize resources and build up a triage unit there. We have great relationships with all our Regional Campuses.”

Hunt, Howe and others began discussing the idea and by the next day, UAMS leadership had given its OK. That same day, the planning group met online with Becky Hall, Ed.D., director of UAMS East Regional Campus in Helena.

Working with Phillips County Judge Clark Hall, Becky Hall’s husband, and other county officials, they quickly identified the building to use. The county had purchased the old John Deere dealership building for future use by local justice and law enforcement offices, but it still is under renovation and isn’t yet occupied. Another advantage was its location across Martin Luther King Jr. Drive from the Helena Regional Medical Center.

Hall identified local partners like the Helena Health Foundation to help with publicity and together they got the word out to the community. Other groups provided meals and additional support. At a minimum, including UAMS personnel, several dozen people were involved to make it all happen.

Apart from meeting the immediate need of patient care and treatment, the Helena project also can begin to provide a picture of what impact COVID-19 is having on the region.

“We’re the unhealthiest county in the state, and it makes sense that we have cases, but we weren’t seeing them,” Hall said. “We are so grateful for this joint effort. The chancellor is committed to rural areas. Exercises like this show that UAMS is not just in Little Rock. It’s the entire state.”

As residents in their cars and trucks waited in line at the former dealership, they were asked to phone the call center at UAMS in Little Rock to register and get entered into the computer system, if they weren’t already a UAMS patient.

Once they were seen by one of the nurses, they entered into the service bays to be asked a series of screening questions by one of three UAMS physicians on site. Their condition and answers determined if they needed testing, performed by experienced nurses who obtain a specimen with a nasal swab. The UAMS team then took these tests back to UAMS for processing and follow-up with the patients with their results in a couple of days. No patient had to get out of their vehicle, and all the screeners were equipped and wearing personal protective equipment (PPE) such as masks, eye protection, gloves and disposable medical gowns.

Hunt, Howe and Hall along with UAMS leadership and health care professionals hope the outreach effort in Helena can be duplicated elsewhere in the rest of the state, especially in similar rural areas that often are underserved and where primary care providers are few.

“It means everything to our region because we’re a region that has been one of the worst for health statistics in almost the entire country,” said Helena Mayor Kevin Smith. “One of the biggest components of that has been access to health care. Getting enough tests done and screening so that it is statistically significant is important. UAMS coming here today with their first mobile unit means we will have five times more testing in four hours than we will have had in three weeks.”

Information from the screening and testing will tell UAMS and local officials more about what is happening in terms of the population health of Helena and eastern Arkansas, he said.

“The information will give us the information to treat people,” Smith said. “That means we can treat people earlier. I have been overwhelmed with the support we have gotten from UAMS, including Dr. Patterson. We are so grateful and I hope UAMS can come back.”