Lab Matters Winter 2025 | Page 15

FEATURE

We can plan for all the scenarios, but it’ s rarely going to hit the way you planned. If we’ re not adaptable, we’ re more likely to crack under the pressure.”

Redundancy is also part of the readiness puzzle. Tactics like standing orders help ensure supplies are in place and eliminate administrative burdens. Multiple testing platforms also help keep work moving during a surge.

“ We’ re looking at having multiple instruments that can be used and validated as part of these assays,” Perry said.“ The pandemic reaffirmed that supply chain resilience and data connectivity are vital to laboratory capabilities. Without access to reagents or the ability to share results in real time, even the best science stalls.”

Corrigan noted that while redundancy is important, it can add cost and complexity.“ Looking back, the only way I was able to survive was to have different platforms because I did run out of reagents,” he said.“ But with redundancy, you must validate each test and train your staff on them. So, redundancy is good and it’ s bad.”

A Nimble Workforce

Kayle Cirrincione

Perry said an agile, cross-trained staff is critical.“ The pandemic required everyone from senior scientists to new hires to pivot quickly to unfamiliar workflows,” he said.“ We realized how important it is to maintain a baseline of readiness across our entire workforce, not just among the specific response team.”

Cirrincione said Dallas County often sees unusual pathogens.“ We’ re used to one-offs, but COVID was a different ball game,” she said.“ It was a lot of samples, and it was sustained. We can plan for all the scenarios, but it’ s rarely going to hit the way you planned. If we’ re not adaptable, we’ re more likely to crack under the pressure.”

Repetitiveness and burnout affected her four-person team, which ran all the COVID samples, she said.“ We would run 300 samples a day during COVID,” she said.“ We’ d start first thing in the morning and fax out paper test results by 6 p. m. I still have dreams about filling out those little bubbles indicating positive or negative and making sure they were correct. It was just constant going.”

Many laboratory teams took on new tasks that required new processes.“ This was the first and only time in my 20-year public health career that we were asked to report results directly to patients,” Corrigan said.“ Creating an electronic non-manual portal process to report results was critical to our success.”

Preventing team burnout during the next pandemic is something Perry thinks about a lot.“ I’ m not so worried about the next pathogen,” he said.“ I worry about my group and the burden a surge has on them, especially the longevity of it. They’ re the heart and soul of the testing and the work.”

To help prevent burnout, Wadsworth offers training to help enhance and enrich the scientific lives of team members, focusing on career development, mentoring and leadership pathways.“ We want to give people a sense of progression and purpose beyond the bench,” Perry said.“ We want to strengthen a creative and supportive culture that values work-life balance, celebrates achievements and recognizes the essential roles laboratorians play in protecting health.”

Corrigan said it’ s important to monitor team morale, efficiency and burnout. It’ s also important to consider different approaches to short-term and long-term surges. Asking team members to cover extra hours may work temporarily, but it’ s not sustainable for a long-term surge.“ In those instances, we need to bring in additional staff or rely on external partners such as commercial laboratories,” he said.

Nurture Strong Partnerships

Building relationships with community partners helps support readiness and response. Strong relationships require visibility, which builds trust and enables mutual aid, said Corrigan.“ We have to share the great things we’ re doing to keep the public safe on a day-to-day basis,” he said.

Before he came to San Diego, Corrigan was laboratory manager of northern California’ s Humboldt County Public Health Laboratory. There, he partnered with United Indian Health Services( UIHS) to stand up a COVID testing laboratory.

Corrigan said that through a state partnership with PerkinElmer, Inc., the county received high-throughput testing equipment.“ I didn’ t have space in my laboratory for these big instruments, but they did at UIHS,” he said.“ I helped their laboratory manager get set up and trained so they could handle highthroughput testing. There was no cavalry coming to northern California— it was on us to handle. It was a great partnership between the county and the tribal nations.”

In San Diego, a laboratory testing task force met regularly during the pandemic to share resources and discuss challenges. Participants found the group so valuable that it has kept going.“ It keeps us connected,” Corrigan said.“ Knowing who to call in a surge— before you need help— is really critical.”

Perry said strong communication channels with epidemiologists, clinical laboratories, emergency management teams and first responders allow his team to move faster and more effectively.“ The trust and shared experience that grows from training, exercising and communicating regularly makes real-world response faster, smoother and safer,” he said.

Cirrincione said she plans to use her new training space to strengthen partnerships with sentinel and hospital laboratories.“ I have an open-door policy on biosafety,” she said.“ My goal is to aid

Knowing who to call in a surge— before you need help— is really critical.”

Jeremy Corrigan, DrPH, MS