Shelby County hospitals increase employee testing
Even as Shelby County slowly progresses through its phased reopening plan, COVID-19 cases and the transmission rate of the virus continue to rise and patients continue to be hospitalized.
Doctors and government officials have been cautious as they discuss the day-to-day figures and the trends of that data over time. But they have expressed concern about the behavioral patterns leading to recent upticks and what it could mean for Shelby County over the summer and into the fall.
Regardless of what comes next, medical workers remain in the thick of the pandemic that has seemed to recede somewhat from public consciousness in recent weeks. Local hospital systems have undertaken large-scale internal testing efforts to determine the prevalence of asymptomatic cases among employees.
Nancy Averwater, vice president and chief of human resources for Baptist Memorial Healthcare, said this week that the hospital system had tested more than 13,000 of its 18,500 team members in less than three weeks. So far, they've had a 0.25% positivity rate.
"I think we were expecting the number to be higher but we were actually relieved and pleased that the number was so low," she said. “We've been very diligent about education and training in addition to surveilling our team members daily as they come to work and doing temperature checks.”
Employees at higher risk of contracting the virus — those who work in the emergency department or other patient care areas — were included in the first wave of testing and she said the remaining 5,500 employees, who are spread across the system's hospitals and clinics, would be tested within the next two weeks.
Dr. Bruce Randolph, health officer for the Shelby County Health Department, said the health department did not have an exact interval for how often medical workers should be tested for COVID-19 but said it was important that hospitals and clinics continued to monitor employees.
“We're encouraging that at least at a minimum everyone practice the safety measures we have outlined in the health directive,” he said.
Averwater said Baptists facilities continued to conduct those monitoring practices and was consulting with statisticians and epidemiologists as they receive employee testing data and decide how to proceed with additional testing and any future retesting efforts.
"I think also our team members take this very seriously when they're away from work they're serving as ambassadors in the community," she said. "All of that is likely contributing to our lower than expected positivity rate.”
Regional One Health spokesperson Angie Golding said the hospital had been conducting testing on any symptomatic employees since the beginning of the pandemic and has started testing asymptomatic employees as well.
"We are currently in the process of rolling out expanded testing for all employees. In mid-may, we began our first phase of testing employees in higher risk areas of the hospital, including our COVID unit, intensive care units and emergency department," she said. "We are expanding this week to testing all clinical employees throughout the health system, including our hospital and outpatient offices."
Non-clinical staff will be tested in the hospital's next phase of employee testing and testing will continue on a regular cycle, Golding said.
Within the Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare System, about 560 employees and providers had been tested as of
Friday, with one testing positive, spokesperson Sarah Farley said.
"The one positive test was not unexpected," she added. "The individual previously recovered from a confirmed COVID-19 case, which can result in a positive test for some time after recovery."
Farley said the hospital system was expanding the internal testing program and would be using the test results to help them identify areas that could use retraining on the use of personal protective equipment and proper social distancing measures.
Saint Francis hospitals did not respond to a request for information about their internal testing program.