HSN doctors confident COVID-19 testing, clinical labs can withstand possible winter surge

As Ontario sees a dramatic increase in the number of daily COVID-19 cases, Health Sciences North says it's ready to handle any increase in the community. 

A big reason: the hospital's clinical labs are processing over 1,000 test samples a day, and getting results back in between 48-72 hours.

In April, the same process took anywhere from 3-7 days as samples were analyzed in Toronto, then sent back to local health units for publishing. The labs could also only turn out about 40 tests per day.

Dr. Danielle Brabant-Kirwan, a clinical microbiologist at the hospital, says the lab work may be all behind the scenes, but it's been the community's key defence against the virus' spread.

"We did plan for the influenza season that will be coming very shortly, and we're anticipating that we're going to have higher volumes," Brabant-Kirwan said. "Right now, I'm fairly confident that we are going to be able to get through this without any glitches."

Earlier in the pandemic, labs also faced a shortage of supplies and gear, which bogged down the testing process. But that shouldn't be a major issue moving forward, Brabant-Kirwan said.

"We stocked what we think is an appropriate amount and we have contingency plans for every step," she said. "Hopefully we won't need to utilize all that, and hopefully will stay at little positivity rate."

Erin Tarini, the administrative director for the laboratory and pathology program at HSN, said adopting technology and automation has made the turnaround more efficient.

"To put it in perspective, through all of our programs in the lab, we do 2.5 million tests annually," Tarini said.

"So to be performing one single test at that volume and rate per day of 1,100 is very remarkable in our world. We don't do 1,100 of any other tests in a day."

The only other tests the lab performs which approach their COVID-19 testing rate would be blood and urine tests, Tarini said, which are around 500 per day.

"For us to be able to have that built this rapidly is truly, truly remarkable," she said. 

But at its heart, the lab team was able to coalesce around a single goal, Tarini said: helping the community weather the COVID-19 storm.

"Now people are feeling like it's a little bit of the calm before the storm," Tarini said. "A lot of our team, their drive to contribute was out of the interest in being part of something very monumental for our lab."

She said laboratory staff also told her they welcomed the "distraction" of going to the lab when there was so much uncertainty around the virus, especially during its first days in the community. 

"I think that coming to work, being able to see how the procedure is done, how the test is performed also allows them to release that information and reassurance to their family members and their friends that, you know what, we have a really sound process to identify COVID in our area."