PeriAnesthesia Unit Based Educator VMFH St Joseph Medical Center Tacoma, Washington, United States
Description: With COVID testing turnaround times (TAT) averaging 24-48 hours and an add-on rate of greater than 30% at a level II trauma center, unresulted tests stifled our ability to add on urgent/elective surgeries. Surgical urgency, patient satisfaction, and safety necessitated that we worked to find a solution to better serve our patients by creating a workflow to reduce TAT. From this the Covid Drive Thru was born. We utilized our preadmit clinic RNs, the main valet and our in house lab to bring this to fruition. We created a workflow in which surgery schedulers would call the charge nurse cell phone in PreAdmit while the patient was still in office. The unit secretaries would give the schedulers a secondary number for the patient to call when they were leaving the office or approximately 10 minutes away. This second call alerted the “Covid nurse” of the patient's impending arrival. The nurse was then able to direct the patient to the valet, run out and swab outside the hospital, and deliver the specimen to our in-house lab. By utilizing this system we decreased our TAT to approx 4 hours, giving surgeons the opportunity to utilize block times more efficiently. We also had the ability to test patients for same day procedures if needed. After 11 months of implementation we have tested over 550 patients with results successfully obtained prior to surgery. We’ve maintained patient safety and satisfaction by limiting exposure within the hospital, ensuring ease in the testing process, and providing timely results. This has increased surgeon satisfaction and improved our ability to serve patients by opening the door for add-on urgent/elective cases.