Covid-19: Northwell Labs Invests $30M In Testing

Among purchased equipment are a variety of automated diagnostic and antibody testing machines, which the company said will aid in the "rapid and uninterrupted process (in testing) in the event of another surge."

“Our goal has been to deploy at scale as much testing as possible, as quickly as possible, so we were among the first labs to implement, validate and evaluate performance characteristics for most of these tests,” said Dwayne Breining, MD, executive director of Northwell Health Labs. “Early in the pandemic, it was unclear which manufacturer would be able to supply quality testing at scale, so we ran with them all. 

"As various supply chain issues have emerged, maintaining multiple testing platforms has been a successful mitigation strategy.”

Among the company's stockpile are high-throughput diagnostic testing analyzers from Hologic, Roche and Abbott, as well as cartridge-type tests from Genmark, Cepheid, Diasorin, Biomeme and Abbott. Northwell also is using best-in-class, in-lab, “wet” antibody chemistry tests from Roche, Ortho, Abbott, EuroImmune, Diasorin and others.

Northwell Labs reportedly processed about 7,000 "molecular nucleic acid amplification" tests and 3,000 antibody tests per day, and said that they could manage more if necessary. 

In a press release, the company said that they have developed techniques to prevent false positives by developing a "two-step algorithm"--essentially, double-checking positive tests. 

“Most testing today is for screening purposes, so we need to mitigate the potential effects of sporadic false-positive results,” said James Crawford, MD, senior vice president of laboratory services at Northwell. “These are more likely to occur now that the New York area positivity rate is below 1 percent.”

Anyone in need of a COVID-19 test can go to Northwell Health-GoHealth Urgent Care, Northwell Health Labs patient service center (with a doctor’s prescription) or using at-home testing, which can be procured using the LabFly app.

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