COVID-19 test results come in minutes instead days at Tacoma assisted living facility
A Tacoma assisted living community implemented a new rapid testing system recently that detects cases of COVID-19 in minutes instead of days.
GenCare Lifestyle at Point Ruston is using a third-party contractor to test residents at its 159-unit community on Tacoma’s waterfront.
“We want to safely reopen and mitigate the spread of infection and bring real-time results to our residents today,” said Danielle Parker, a nurse and lead clinician for GenCare.
Long before anyone had heard of COVID-19, congregate care settings from nursing homes to assisted living facilities took precautions against the flu, nororvirus and other communicable diseases that can spread rapidly in those settings.
In Washington, the first mass outbreak and deaths from COVID-19 happened in a Kirkland nursing home.
While testing became available early in the pandemic, staff and residents at GenCare’s six Puget Sound locations had to wait up to a week to learn whether they tested positive or negative for COVID-19.
“Even on our best day of (standard) tests, it could take up to two days to receive results,” Parker said. “That really delays things. That has us in unnecessary lockdowns, or what we call ‘staycations’ or isolations, while we’re ruling out an infection.”
The rapid test, created by San Diego-based diagnostic company Quidel, is administered by CAIPHI EP Testing. It provides results within 15 to 30 minutes. Its accuracy rate of 96.6% matches that of current standard tests.
“What the rapid test really does is, it helps us have immediate information so we can make decisions based on the status of the virus, science and what’s going on in the building at that exact moment and not having to wait,” Parker said.
The test also screens for the influenza virus types A and B.
GenCare’s Point Ruston facility consists of independent and assisted living. Residents range in age from 60s to 90s. Common areas include a swimming pool, gym, bistro, dining room and other areas.
The pandemic and its necessary social isolation has hit the community hard, as it has everywhere. The maximum group activity size at GenCare facilities is four, and residents must socially distance and wear masks, Parker said. Meals are delivered to residents’ apartments.
The goal of the rapid testing, said Leon Grunstein, GenCare CEO, is to create a safe space for seniors and return normality and socializing to their lives as quickly as possible.
“We’re all social animals,” Grunstein said.
When seniors are isolated they can get depressed and lose cognitive and physical abilities, he said.
“In a setting like ours, where they’re around other people who are watching them, and they continue to get stimulated and stay physically active to the highest degree they can, they fare better than if they just stay at home alone,” he said.
Like other group settings, GenCare has had a few COVID cases.
“We’ve had very, very little spread, and nearly every positive was contained very quickly,” Parker said.
GenCare has been getting its residents vaccinated against COVID-19. Acceptance of the vaccine has been almost universal among residents, Parker said.
GenCare has been testing its residents weekly for COVID-19. That schedule will continue with the new rapid testing, Parker said.
New residents stay in quarantine for 14 days. Parker calls it pampered luxury. Even their movers are tested before entering the facility, she said.
There is no additional charges for the testing, she said.
There are still many unknowns and details to be worked out before the pandemic is over and a return to something looking like pre-pandemic can occur, Parker said. Aspects of the health care industry will never be the same, she said.
“The story is sort of yet to be told on how this unfolds,” she said. “I can confidently say, infection control in the entire world will change as a result.”
This story was originally published January 24, 2021 at 7:05 AM with the headline "COVID-19 test results come in minutes instead days at Tacoma assisted living facility."
