The University of South Alabama (USA) Health and Synergy Laboratories have announced the expansion of their COVID-19 testing partnership to expand services offering surveillance testing to employer groups.
The two organizations have partnered alongside one another since the early stages of the pandemic. Together, USA Health and Synergy have administered over 600,000 COVID-19 tests for residents of South Alabama. The partnership expansion enables them to offer testing to employer groups for surveillance purposes.
Brad Pitts of Synergy said the new offering service comes on the heels of an increased interest in employers wishing to implement mitigation efforts stemming from the spread of the Delta variant.
“Surveillance testing has already been utilized in several different arenas,” said Pitts. “As we have seen local and regional numbers spike from the Delta variant, we anticipate more employer groups wanting to protect employees and quite simply keep their doors open by testing.”
The entities cited the strain of Alabama’s health care infrastructure due to the rapid increase in positive cases.
Dr. Ross of USA Industrial Medicine applauded the partnership’s new testing offering.
“We are excited to expand our ability to offer testing for all local employers through aligning our resources at USA with Synergy Labs,” said Ross. “There are many testing options available in the market we reviewed, but the multiple platforms provided by our partners at Synergy will allow for timely results and keep Mobile working. Pooling options at Synergy will be a cost-effective option for employers and it is important we offer dependable FDA approved platforms while not breaking the bank.”
Pooling samples is a process of combining multiple patients into one test and has proven to be an effective strategy for testing large asymptomatic groups.
Synergy COO Brandon Biles said the testing strategy has already been implemented for various athletic programs, citing the need to apply the same method to workplace testing.
“We have been able to pool test for various entities such as athletic programs, which allow for targeted testing within subsets or groups of people within a workout group or position group,” said Biles. “I feel this same theory could be used in the workplace as often we are segmented by departments similar to an athletic team.”
Molecular supervisor Emily Powers noted the work that has been put in to study the project.
“Pooling samples for asymptomatic surveillance is a project we have been working on for some time,” stated Powers. “The high throughput automation offered through our Tecan liquid handlers eliminates hours of work, allowing for faster turnaround times. Pooling samples for SARs-Cov-2 testing involves mixing several samples in a “batch” or pooled sample, then testing the pooled sample with a diagnostic test.
She added, “This approach increases the number of individuals that are tested using the same number of resources. For example, five samples may be tested together, using only the necessary resources for a single test. This method of pooling samples works well when there is a low prevalence of cases, mainly meaning negative results are expected with few positive results.”
Dylan Smith is a staff writer for Yellowhammer News. You can follow him on Twitter @DylanSmithAL
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