TestNebraska project kept MLH on its toes

 


Thanks to organization and planning, Mary Lanning Healthcare Laboratory Services was able to weather the storm of COVID-19 testing.

Between Aug. 17, 2020 and May 1, 2021, the lab collected 7,266 samples for TestNebraska, the state-sponsored effort to provide COVID-19 testing.

During the pandemic, MLH employees volunteered to staff the drive-up testing site on the east side of the MLH hospital building. Terri Brown, MLH director of laboratory and pathology services, said the program started out slowly and built up quickly as more testing supplies were available and demand for testing grew.

Initially, MLH employees operated the TestNebraska site three days per week. Within the first month, testing was moved to five days per week. As the number of patients in the hospital began growing, four additional staff members were hired to operate the testing site. At the peak of the South Heartland District Health Department’s COVID-19 numbers in November 2020, three more staff members were hired.

Brown said the total number of staff hours dedicated to TestNebraska per week averaged 88. During the COVID-19 peak in this area — around Thanksgiving 2020 — the site was collecting more than 100 samples in a two-hour time frame.

“We had numerous challenges and had to be extremely organized in order to meet the demand,” Brown said. “In December 2020, poor weather quickly made us realize we needed protection for staff during the winter months.”

Brown worked with the MLH engineering department to design and build a 10-by-20-foot semi-permanent structure in the MLH east parking lot to help with weather-related problems. The team shelter included lighting and heating.

“In January, our drive-up test numbers started slowly decreasing,” Brown said. “By March, numbers dictated we should decrease collections to only three days per week. We finished in April, averaging fewer than 15 collections per day.”

Despite the shutdown of the drive-up testing site at the hospital, the lab continued to ship samples for TestNebraska through a private courier from Hastings Family Care and Hastings Convenient Care, as well as local nursing homes.

Brown said the experience made her proud of her staff, who stepped up to help whenever they could. It also brought together several MLH departments, which cooperated to create an easy drive-up experience for patients.

“There were many logistical issues, including an early lack of testing supplies and staffing issues, with becoming a TestNebraska site,” Brown said. “But we felt as if MLH needed to be there for our community during this pandemic. The testing was just one of the many ways our organization did just that. And we are thankful to the community for their support over this past year.”

COVID-19 Testing:

By the numbers

The following is a list of the monthly test totals taken at the TestNebraska site at Mary Lanning Healthcare from August 2020 to May 2021:

August 2020-281; September 2020-701; October 2020-1,557; November 2020-1,653; December 2020-1,370; January 2021-813; February 2021-422; March 2021-271; and April 2021-198

 

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