California medical group starts drive-in testing

A medical group in California is to provide drive-in testing at its 92 facilities as demand for coronavirus testing increases.

The Kaiser Permanente medical group is asking patients who believe they have the symptoms of the virus, to email their doctor.

The doctor will then ring or video chat the patient. If the patient qualifies for testing, they will receive an appointment to attend the nearest Kaiser Hospital for a drive-through testing.

“We’ve set up multiple tents actually outside the hospital,” said Rebecca O’Brien, a sub-specialist with the medical group. “But one of those tents is the drive-through garage. It’s a big tent that a car can drive through.”

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She added: “If the doctors determine that the patient should have a test, and they’re well enough, they will get in their car and drive to the drive up. Without rolling down their window, they will show their Kaiser membership card to the intake people at the drive through.”

The patient is then logged and verified on the system before a practitioner walks up to the vehicle, fully dressed in personal protective equipment, to perform the test.

“Just swab, close up, off you go. That patient doesn’t infect other patients and even if it’s not Covid, if it’s the flu or something else, you don’t want a bunch of people sitting around in the waiting room. So there’s very little room for infection.”

A similar initiative was launched in Cork city late last week at the St Mary's Health Campus and the UK has also begun to use a similar scheme in recent days.

Currently, the at-home testing in Ireland takes about an hour per patient, while the San Francisco hospital can carry out the drive-in test in 30 minute intervals and intend to speed up this time in the coming week,

While believed to be an effective method of increasing the volume of testing, Dr O’Brien acknowledges that it may not be possible to implement in every healthcare system.

“We have our own lab, we have our own pharmacies, we control everything so we’re able to get things done at a much better speed and we’re operationally more robust than smaller private practices,” she added.