A closer look at what makes COVID-19 testing so complicated

A closer look at what makes COVID-19 testing so complicated

The coronavirus outbrealicia says: it's not just asante making changes to testing -- skylakes medical center in klamath falls is now testing anyone who wants to be tested -- something that up until this point wasn't seen anywhere in our area -- so what changed and why aren't the changes impacting more hospitals and clinics?

Yesterday on newswatch 12 at 4 brian morton asked tom hottman with skylakes medical center how they were able to get tests in order to be able to test anyone who wants to -- this was his response hottman says: "we have a lot of hardworking people who scrambled to get the pieces together, there's a lot of small moving parts in getting the kits, if you will, not only t the samples for testing but getting the samples to the lab where they can be analized."

So if it's as simple as working hard, then why aren't more hospitals doing this?

Our healthcare system in our country is not unified so no reason to think when it comes time for testing, that wevery single intty is going to be sending all our test to the same providers the covid-19 pandemic, has in a way, shined a light on the way in which health care providers communicate and work together.

There is no requirement in terms of sharing information, processes.

If we have posite cases there are requirements with the cdc and the counties to report certain health concerns that a provider might have but in terms of offices working together in hospitals working together that's not a process that's in place it's not required right now shames says: it's a competitive market place and people have relationships with certain vendors and it's not unlike other businesses in that respect on top of that there's a shortage of supplies.

Shames says: "you have the large national labs that until just recently have been quite backlogged" sharee says: each office that i'm aware of as well as all the hospitals are trying to require enough ppe to protect staff and patients that are coming through alicia says: is there a test shortage?

Shames says: absolutely.

If we had enough tests we probably would wouldn't need to be doing quite as much of the total shut down that we're doing alicia says: for a breakdown of where tests can be processed and the options our local providers have, head to our website, kdrv.com.

Reporting from home, alicia rubin,