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Effective July 26, UAMS will limit patients to one visitor per day.
UAMS Hospital to Limit Patient Visits
| LITTLE ROCK — The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) will change its visitation policy to limit patients to one visitor per day, effective Monday, July 26. Previously, patients could have multiple visitors a day as long as only one visitor was in the patient’s room at a time.
“We know the importance of family presence for our patients and regret having to make this change, but we were forced to do so in order to protect our patients, staff and visitors,” said UAMS Medical Center CEO Steppe Mette, M.D. “We have already had one patient infected with COVID by a visitor. With the workforce shortage hospitals are facing now, we must minimize the risk of infection for our medical staff and care teams.”
UAMS is complying with “No Patient Left Alone” Act to ensure patients continue to have the support they need, particularly for patients with disabilities and elderly patients who may have dementia or difficulty seeing or hearing. UAMS is also using digital visitation to help patients stay connected with loved ones virtually.
UAMS will continue to require visitors to pass a daily health screening and wear both a photo ID badge and a face mask. Hospital visitors will also be required to stay in the patient’s room at all times.
“We will, of course, continue to allow additional visitors for end-of-life situations,” said Mette. “Our staff has worked closely with families over the past 18 months to ensure they have as much contact with their loved ones as possible, and they’ve come up with very creative ways to keep families connected and protected from the spread of COVID. We have to be much stricter until COVID cases in Arkansas are under control and the number of patients in our hospital decreases dramatically.”
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 3,275 students, 890 medical residents and fellows, and five dental residents. It is the state’s largest public employer with more than 12,000 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.###