FROM INTERNAL BENEFIT TO EXTERNAL BUSINESS
As a clinical reference laboratory , Children ’ s Colorado offers subspecialized esoteric assays that few institutions have access to . This means other institutions across the nation send samples for testing , and Children ’ s Colorado delivers the service . As the first hospital in Colorado to validate and offer a SARS-CoV-2 assay , the lab expanded that model to help serve the COVID-19 testing needs of hospitals and other clients in Colorado and neighboring states . With five separate platforms , including two Abbott highthroughput devices , the lab takes a diversified approach to testing patient specimens . The strategy has allowed the team to work through concerning supply chain challenges while still maintaining its value proposition : a high-quality test result within 24 hours .
WASHES AS A WORKAROUND
Early on , inventory was tight for many supplies — including the typical flocked swabs . Although the hospital now has the numbers it needs , it did temporarily implement a swab alternative .
“ With children , we often do nasopharyngeal washes , which is where you squirt some saline into the nose and then collect it as the specimen ,” says infectious disease specialist and Children ’ s Colorado Microbiology Lab medical director Samuel Dominguez , MD , PhD . “ You don ’ t need swabs for those because it ’ s a different procedure , and you achieve the same results . It was a great workaround for some patients .”
HIGH-THROUGHPUT MOBILE SPECIMEN COLLECTION
The fashioning of two drive-thru collection sites , one at Anschutz Medical Campus in the Denver metro area and the other at Children ’ s Hospital Colorado , Colorado Springs , allows for safe and efficient specimen collection that conserves the consumption of personal protective equipment used by healthcare workers . A third site will open soon at Children ’ s Hospital Colorado , North Campus in Broomfield , along with a fourth site at Children ’ s Hospital Colorado , South Campus , in Highlands Ranch . Access to these collection sites is by appointment only , and they are not open to the general public . Rather , they fundamentally serve pediatric patients in the community , as well as healthcare workers .
STUDYING SERO-EPIDEMIOLOGY
The pathology lab at Children ’ s Colorado was the first in Colorado to begin collecting convalescent plasma from recovered COVID-19 patients and manufacturing it for transfusion under FDA emergency IND protocol . Convalescent plasma contains antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 that , when transfused into a patient with COVID-19 , are believed to help them recover by boosting their immune system . But for reasons unknown , some recently recovered patients don ’ t seroconvert — meaning they don ’ t develop detectable antibodies . To avoid unnecessarily collecting plasma from donors , the transfusion medicine team now performs antibody testing prior to collection . •
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Left : The Children ’ s Colorado Blood Donor Center collects convalescent plasma from an adult patient who recently recovered from COVID-19 .
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