A Legislative Auditor’s report raises concerns that COVID test results are not getting reported to the Department of Health fast enough for effective contact tracing.
Data Analytics Manager Chris Magee said laboratories are not reporting all results to LDH within the legally mandated 24 hour time period. One in five tests see a significant lag in how long it takes the results to get back to LDH.
“We saw on average that it took a little over five days for results to get to LDH but in some instances, it took six months plus,” said Magee.
The report did discover that the COVID numbers on the LDH dashboard are accurate and not being over-reported. The Auditor’s office estimates only point four percent of reported tests are duplicates.
The report found that the labs’ failure to not only report results but include adequate information to identify positive patients is significantly hampering the effectiveness of contact tracing.
“These individuals and those contacts of the positive individuals are not going to be contacted in a timely manner,” said Magee.
Another issue noticed was that many large organizations like professional sports teams and major employers that mass test regularly were not reporting their data to LDH. The report suggests that could be artificially increasing the statewide positivity rate, a claim LDH strongly disagreed with.
The report makes some recommendations for addressing the issue. Magee said one is for LDH to better identify who the slow reporting labs are.
“Try to figure out what the cause is. Is there some type of technology issue? Do the individuals working at that laboratory not fully understand the regulations around reporting?” said Magee.
LDH disagreed with some of the report’s suggestions, saying that receiving some outdated testing results was likely unavoidable given the onboarding process for new labs and that they already have procedures in place to address slow reporting labs.
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