As the van carrying UAMS healthcare 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 10 a.m., the team from the main campus in Little Rock and from UAMS East Family Medical Center 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.
When the evaluations concluded in Helena, the UAMS team had screened more than 120 patients.
“I thought it was absolutely spectacular,” said Jennifer Hunt, MD, chair of the UAMS Department of Pathology, who helped plan the outreach effort and lead it on site.
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.