Declining COVID-19 positivity rates and increased vaccinations are the driving factors behind Penn State Health’s decision to revise its preprocedural testing requirements beginning Monday, July 5.
“For most of Penn State Health, with the exception of Holy Spirit Medical Center, we have been testing every patient for COVID before they undergo a procedure,” said Dr. Robert Harbaugh, senior vice president, Penn State Health Medical Group. “We now feel we can focus our testing on a much smaller group of patients based on the positivity rate in the state and in our own patients and the fact that many of our patients and staff have been vaccinated. Once we implement the new testing requirements, we believe we can reduce the roughly 1,000 tests performed each week by about 90%.”
The new process was developed by a task force made up of Penn State Health’s chief medical officers and surgical and anesthesiology representatives from each hospital. It requires COVID-19 PCR testing prior to a nonemergent procedure for unvaccinated patients who:
- have been in close contact with COVID-positive individuals within 14 days
- are at increased risk for adverse postoperative outcomes from COVID-19
- are undergoing procedures at high risk of transmitting COVID-19 if undiagnosed
Each hospital will determine how many days prior to a procedure patients must be tested.
Throughout the pandemic, Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center and Penn State Health St. Joseph Medical Center have tested every patient for COVID-19 prior to any procedure. Holy Spirit Medical Center has used a focused-testing process that it implemented prior to its transition to Penn State Health.
“Holy Spirit staff have been meticulous in looking for evidence of COVID transmission either from patient to patient or patient to staff and haven’t found any,” Harbaugh said. “That gave us confidence we could make the change to focused preprocedural testing requirements successfully.”