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Working at the COVID-19 testing drive-thru at Shorter College in North Little Rock, a UAMS nurse takes a minute to enter some patient information into an iPad. Image by Bryan Clifton

COVID-19 Testing Draws Hundreds to North Little Rock Drive-thru

July 2, 2020 | The UAMS Mobile Triage team offered COVID-19 testing to anyone who came to their drive-thru June 30 at Shorter College in North Little Rock, and hundreds of people showed up in response.

For a brief time before police could reroute the vehicles, cars and trucks were backed up onto the nearest Interstate 30 off ramp. By the time the time the drive-thru concluded, 216 people were tested, a record high for the Mobile Triage team.

“It has completely exceeded my expectations. I have people lined up from Broadway and looping down two more blocks that way,” state Rep. Jamie Scott said while pointing east early in the drive-thru. “The police have come to help us with traffic. It’s important we do outreach, and I have been asking for a site over here. I’m very excited.”

Scott was there along with state Sen. Linda Chesterfield, who provided box lunches to the first 100 people participating in the drive-thru. Apart from Chesterfield and Scott, other local partners included Shorter College, City of North Little Rock, African Methodist Episcopal Church, Pulaski County Government, Blue and You Foundation and Arkansas Minority Health Commission.

“UAMS is vital,” Chesterfield said. “It is the flagship for health care in Arkansas. Its role is one of the most important ones we have. Chancellor Patterson and his team have done a phenomenal job. Dr. Nate Smith at the Arkansas Department of Health has done a phenomenal job. When you are the teaching hospital like UAMS, you are teaching us how best to protect ourselves. We are just so grateful for UAMS under the direction of Dr. Patterson.”

Since conducting the first COVID-19 drive-thru evaluations in early April and until the Shorter College testing, the UAMS mobile triage team has asked patients in each drive-thru a series of screening questions about symptoms to determine if they should be tested.

Patients in the June 30 drive-thru still had to register on the phone, but they no longer had to be screened to get tested. Experienced nurses and medical assistants from UAMS performed the swabbing to obtain a specimen from the back part of the nose.

The samples are taken back to UAMS for processing and follow-up with the patients with their results in several days. No patient had to get out of their vehicle, and all the screeners were wearing personal protective equipment (PPE) such as masks, eye protection, gloves and disposable medical gowns.

“The environment is a little different in the middle of the summer and wearing the personal protective equipment, it gets warm,” said Michelle Krause, M.D., M.P.H. “I think the drive-thru patients were very appreciative of that and for the opportunity to get tested. We’ve had a very warm welcome from this community. Everyone and every partner has been very supportive and thankful we are here.”

Krause is a professor in the Division of Nephrology in the UAMS College of Medicine’s Department of Internal Medicine.

She oversaw clinical operations during the drive-thru, which was organized by Kristie Hadden, Ph.D., UAMS senior strategy associate and interim director of population health.

“Reaching every community is a priority for Arkansas,” Hadden said. “It’s part of the UAMS mission, so we partner with many health care systems and agencies to reach communities. These are our neighbors, and these are our patients. We’re happy to be here.”

Chesterfield said she and Scott wanted more testing for the communities in and around North Little Rock that they represent, especially for their constituents who sometimes don’t have the money or the access to transportation to get them to a more distant testing site.

“I’ve had a family member who died from COVID-19, so it is very personal for me,” Chesterfield said. “It is important that those individuals who are the least among us be tested. In Arkansas, we have had a different response. The governor has pitched in along with our health department and UAMS. I’m proud of our effort.”