[ad_1]
Coronavirus testing remained a struggle in Utah this week, with patients reporting long queues at testing sites, days of waiting for results and frustration at finding a way to get tested in first place.
“Our availability of tests right now is poor,” said Dr. Brandon Webb, infectious disease physician for Intermountain Healthcare, at a press conference this week. “We really need to increase test uptime and turnaround times. I think we all hear about patients getting tested and not getting the test results for two or three days. “
For those undergoing tests that are processed in the lab, according to state data, the wait for results is now longer, on average, than it has ever been since large-scale coronavirus testing. scale became available in the spring of 2020. And delays in access and results may mean that the number of cases reported by state health officials does not fully reflect the spread of the virus.
President Joe Biden on Thursday announced national initiatives “to make testing more available, more affordable and more convenient.” He pledged to increase production of rapid tests and said major retailers – including Kroger, the supermarket chain that includes Smith’s stores in Utah – will begin selling home tests at cost, starting at next week.
But for now, Utah patients say they’re still struggling to get tested.
Many private providers like pharmacies and clinics were still almost unavailable Thursday afternoon. CVS didn’t have an appointment the next day along the Wasatch Front, and Walgreens only had a handful statewide. And pharmacies have constantly sold home tests.
The University of Utah Health was limiting testing only to patients with symptoms and those who had more than seven days of exposure to someone already diagnosed – and on Thursday only two next day appointments were available, one through Park City and one in Orem.
And company Orem Nomi Health, which now operates nearly all of TestUtah’s previously state-run free sites, still sees long lines at some of its sites.
“Very difficult to navigate”
University Hospital orthopedist Dr Christopher Pelt looked for an available test after his teenage daughter fell ill on Tuesday and found the same day site closest to her Park City home was a TestUtah site in Holladay . The queue was long with only an hour of scheduled test operations, he said, and staff said anyone still around at closing time would have to leave and go to another site. .
Pelt’s daughter finally made it home after Pelt landed a last-minute slot at the Park City clinic in the United States. But a computer glitch delayed his results for another three days.
“The whole system has been very difficult to navigate, and I’m a doctor,” Pelt said. “I can’t imagine how difficult it is for people who are not in health care. “
Intermountain Healthcare has significantly ramped up its testing in recent weeks with a self-service saliva test available at various locations in the clinic; its test volumes tripled in less than two weeks from mid-August to the end of August, according to data from the Utah Department of Health.
Meanwhile, TestUtah has “made some operational changes” to reduce wait times at some of its sites, Hudachko said. Last week, the state’s health department moved nearly all of its testing sites to Nomi Health, in order to redirect its own testing teams of National Guard members and public health officials to schools for “test-to-stay” operations.
But schools can’t begin testing requirements to stay until they hit a 2% infection rate or, in small schools, identify 30 cases. And difficulties with testing can skew data on the number of Utah children who contract COVID-19, said Dr. Andrew Pavia, director of hospital epidemiology at Intermountain Primary Children’s Hospital.
In a press briefing Thursday, Pavia noted that about a quarter of the new COVID-19 cases currently reported in Utah are in school-aged children – more than double the rate seen last winter.
“And this is despite the fact that it is quite difficult to get your child tested,” Pavia said, suggesting the rate could be even higher.
[Read more: Utahns’ choices are ‘hurting children,’ doctor warns, as more kids get sick with COVID-19]
Fewer test sites, no more waiting
As state teams were diverted to schools that did not actually test and Nomi took control of the state’s public testing sites, demand for testing exploded. Test volumes are now reaching levels not seen since February; The UDOH reported Thursday that 17,411 people had been tested for the first time the day before, and that a total of 27,882 people had been tested.
Some of TestUtah’s sites, like the one Dr. Pelt’s daughter visited, have been overwhelmed, while others have not. Patients at the TestUtah site in the UDOH office building last week reported queues so long that people, desperate for a bathroom, jumped out of cars and relieved themselves in the bushes . But this week, the same site barely had a line of more than three cars, Hudacko said.
Because expectations have been so uneven since TestUtah started accepting appointments at all sites, UDOH is redirecting some of its test teams from schools to Nomi’s sites.
“Site operators will let us know if they experience significant delays, and we will supplement staff at high-traffic sites with mobile teams,” said Hudachko. TestUtah sites will also no longer book appointments from this weekend, making all of its sites first come, first served.
Both UDOH and Nomi are trying to hire staff to create more test sites, he added.
“We have a lot fewer testing sites right now,” said Hudachko, referring to drive-thru sites that health systems opened earlier in the pandemic but were cut off when the number of cases plummeted in the United States. spring.
The longest turnaround times for lab-processed tests were reported by TestUtah, whose average turnaround times last week started to exceed two days, according to UDOH data.
Nomi’s average test processing time this summer has consistently been the longest of Utah’s five major lab groups, even though it also handled fewer tests than other vendors.
Sometimes that was just a few extra hours on average. But compared to the state lab, TestUtah’s average turnaround time has often meant almost a full day of waiting for results.
While test turnaround times have increased for vendors statewide in recent weeks, none have increased more than TestUtah, which now handles more tests than any other vendor except ‘Intermountain Healthcare.
ARUP processes tests from TestUtah. But its turnaround times for other vendors, which were similar to TestUtah’s, fell sharply as it ramped up capacity last week, hitting just over a processing day on September 5. Meanwhile, TestUtah’s turnaround times have held steady at around two days; it is not clear whether delays may occur in transporting samples or in laboratory work.
“We are looking at two metrics: one is efficiency at the test site itself, and the other is efficiency over time,” said Tom Hudachko, spokesperson for UDOH. .
Stand in line
But there were also problems on the sites themselves.
On the Holladay TestUtah site, Peter Alt, a resident of Millcreek, said he arrived to find a line of about 100 idling cars.
“Two of the staff were working hard but the process was super inefficient and once you were in the queue there was no way out,” Alt said. “I would have been sentenced but there was no way out. “
When a test site opened Wednesday afternoon near Highland High School, a line of cars quickly backed up to the school building, where confused drivers struggled to find the line at the middle of the cars arriving to pick up the students. A patient ran along the block to confirm that the line was in fact for a testing site, as there was no sign.
Jayden Petter lined up for what was his second attempt to take a test. He had joined his family on Tuesday morning at the Holladay site and had taken his test after about an hour of waiting, he said. But while his father and brother had got their results by the time they got home, Jayden’s account was empty.
“I called them this morning and they told me I didn’t take it,” he laughed. “I guess they lost the results.”
Salt Lake City resident Monica Hoffmann had been waiting for about 20 minutes when she was halfway down the same line. She said she was just grateful to find a test near her home, after being alerted to possible exposure by a long-silent COVID tracking app she installed on her phone at the start of the pandemic.
“All the other sites, they’re all reserved. I tried CVS, Walgreens, called the U. Hoffmann said. “It’s hard to get a date right now.
Biden said his administration would increase the number of retail pharmacies where people can get free tests through the Department of Health and Human Services to 10,000 locations. It will also send 25 million free kits to 1,400 community health centers and hundreds of food banks across the country, he said, “so that every American, regardless of income, can access free and practical tests “.
– Journalist Sean P. Means contributed to this story.
[ad_2]
Source link