Covid-19 testing criteria at the Martha’s Vineyard Hospital remains limited to symptomatic and other high-risk patients, hospital leaders clarified Wednesday, saying they are getting a large volume of testing requests from employers and parents of children headed to summer camps as the state continues its gradual reopening process.
The hospital is one of two Covid-19 testing sites on the Island, and has strict clinical criteria that confines testing to symptomatic patients and a small number of high-risk asymptomatic patients due to the limited availability of tests, president and CEO Denise Schepici said at a press briefing Wednesday.
A second site, TestMV, is focused on testing asymptomatic patients and is located in the performing arts parking lot at the regional high school. TestMV is not affiliated with the hospital but is an independent public health partnership sponsored by Quest Diagnostics, Island Health Care and the six Island boards of health.
Head of nursing and operations Claire Seguin said at the briefing Wednesday that the hospital has received a “pretty decent” number of requests from business owners looking for pre-employment testing and parents looking to have children tested before attending summer camp. She attributed the high call volume to the arrival of summer.
The high school site, TestMV is testing asymptomatic patients free of charge, but does not test patients under the age of 18 and it may take several days to get an appointment.
Ms. Schepici said Wednesday that while the hospital has expanded testing to include all symptomatic patients, their close contacts, and high-risk asymptomatic patients, such as people with pre-existing conditions, the hospital does not have the supply or bandwidth to open testing for employers or summer camps.
“Our testing supply is limited and that’s why we need to stick to our clinical criteria,” Ms. Schepici said. “So pre-employment and pre-camp testing is not part of our criteria because of the limited number of tests.”
“It would just be too big a bucket,” added head of nursing Claire Seguin. “[Our testing] is broad enough, but it’s not everybody.”
The hospital has tested nearly 1,500 patients for the virus since March, with 28 tests coming back positive.
Ms. Schepici said domestic test manufacturing is limited, especially now with cases surging in states outside the Northeast. The hospital also needs to maintain a supply of its 45-minute turnaround tests so it can admit patients for care, she said, further limiting its capacity.
“Those have become rapidly depleted,” Ms. Schepici said of the short-turnaround tests. “That’s why we just really haven’t advocated for widespread testing without criteria.”
She said the hospital is not actively referring requests to the TestMV site.
“We personally are not referring them. A physician needs to refer those patients,” Ms. Schepici said. “We refer to our laboratory for patients of ours that have a primary care physician here with us, or who have an order from their physician.”
Contacted later, TestMV spokesman Mary Breslauer confirmed the partnership has also received calls from employers seeking tests for their employees. Ms. Breslauer said employers who call seeking tests have been directed to have their employees individually call the site call center at 877-336-9855. She said many such tests had been done since the facility opened in late May.
“That is something the TestMV site has been doing,” Ms. Breslauer said. “Anecdotally . . . there are a lot of employees who have come through the test site,” she added.
In other business Wednesday, hospital leaders reported their reopening process was going smoothly. Ms. Seguin said 47 patients attended rehab or physical therapy appointments on Monday. She added that the hospital emergency room is seeing increasing numbers of severely ill patients, issuing a reminder for people to come to the hospital if they have health concerns.
Also the hospital has seen a baby boomlet in the month of June, with 18 of 19 expected babies already born.
“It’s pretty exciting news,” Ms. Seguin said. “Lots of new babies on the Island.”
Ms. Schepici publicly thanked Mone Insurance and an anonymous donor for providing lunch for hospital employees from Art Cliff diner earlier in the week.
“The last two months have been really challenging,” she said “But having the community support us in these ways has made this pandemic that much easier for us to face every day.”
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