Rapid testing to begin at most LTC homes

More than half of Ottawa's 28 longterm care homes are now signed on to begin rapid COVID-19 testing, with the help of training from EO RLA, the Eastern Ontario Regional Laboratory Association.

The training is aimed at helping homes administer the tests successfully, said Julie Shaw, regional discipline lead for biochemistry and point-of-care testing at The Ottawa Hospital and with EORLA.

“This is a big undertaking,” she said, adding there had been some “nervousness” among long-term care officials about administering the Panbio rapid antigen tests.

The tests, which have been used in pilot projects in Ottawa and other parts of Ontario, are considered game-changers for long-term care homes and other institutions because they can quickly screen even asymptomatic people for COVID-19 and reduce the risk of outbreaks and spread.

Long-term care residents have been the hardest hit by the COVID -19 pandemic.

The Ontario government has been criticized for not making use of the millions of rapid tests quickly enough to slow spread of the coronavirus. In November, it announced the tests would be used in long-term care homes, but that does not become mandatory until the middle of this month.

The province no longer requires the tests to be administered by nurses or other registered health professionals, which had been a barrier for homes that were unable to find staff.

A spokesperson for Ottawa's COVID-19 testing task force said it planned to help implement rapid testing in a number of settings, including near schools, once more long-term care homes were on board. “Our goal is to make it easier to get tested by providing the testing at or near the school. The focus is to remove barriers by bringing testing to schools. Each situation is different — sometimes it will be focused on symptomatic testing, while at other times asymptomatic surveillance is the goal,” Hannah Casey said.

The EORLA has developed a program to train and guide homes through the testing protocol, Shaw said.

Staff members go on-site to longterm care homes to provide handson training.

That training is key to quality assurance — making sure the tests are performed accurately and correctly, Shaw said.

The Panbio tests, one of the brands being used in Ontario, look something like a pregnancy test. A swab is taken, like the nasal swabs done for standard COVID-19 lab tests. But instead of sending it to a lab, the swab is placed in a liquid that comes with the test, and five drops of that liquid are placed on the test cartridge. Within about 15 minutes, the test will produce a positive or negative result.

The tests are generally considered less accurate than the standard PCR (polymerase chain reaction) tests done in labs. Anyone testing positive is presumed to have COVID-19 and must isolate until results of a PCR test are obtained.

Rapid tests offer an “immediacy” that other tests do not, Shaw said, but they are just one tool aimed at helping protect long-term care homes.