How often should healthcare workers be tested for COVID?

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I assume they should be tested more than the general public, but how often?

Specializes in Hospice, corrections, psychiatry, rehab, LTC.

I work for a prison system in the west. We test all employees every other week (medical and non-medical).

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Has anyone seen "official guidance" from anywhere on this? Great question. I haven't seen a "time frame" recommended by the CDC. My place is every two weeks. Don't know why except that it is facility policy

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On 10/9/2020 at 10:55 AM, juan de la cruz said:

@T-Bird78, do you know what PPE requirements the ENT docs have while operating? I ask because at least where I work, any OR case that has AGP which basically is all ENT cases requires everyone in the case to wear PAPR or N95 mask with a face shield.  All elective and emergent surgeries must have a COVID19 test prior to the case.  If positive, urgency of the procedure is assessed against the risk it can impose on all staff who will be in the room for the case. Of course, this is not completely fail safe but this was adopted for the mere fact that ENT docs have long been considered high risk for COVID 19 infection from as early as case reports from Italy at the start of the pandemic.

In office they wear an N95 and surgical mask over it and a face shield or goggles and isolation gown if they’re using the endoscope. In the OR it’s the same, but if it’s airway-specific they have that hood that fits over their head and shoulders (I can’t recall the name right now!). Clinical staff members all have to wear a surgical mask, but if a pt is flagged as a person under investigation (whether they’ve recently been tested or said ‘yes’ to the sx checklist) or flagged as positive COVID, we have to wear N95 under our surgical mask. Staff working closely with the patient are required to wear eye protection as well. 

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A little off topic. Apologies. I did find something interesting out today. CDC recommends not testing for three months after recovery from COVID 19. Apparently we shed detectable levels of virus after recovery. I think PCR will trigger positive even with dead virus. 

I still was unable to find any official guidance on testing HCWs periodically. We decided to test q2 weeks. Reasonable I guess considering the area I am in is having a bad time with viral spread. 

Best to everyone.

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Specializes in Med-Surg.
On 10/23/2020 at 3:16 PM, Matthew Prazak said:

A little off topic. Apologies. I did find something interesting out today. CDC recommends not testing for three months after recovery from COVID 19. Apparently we shed detectable levels of virus after recovery. I think PCR will trigger positive even with dead virus. 

I still was unable to find any official guidance on testing HCWs periodically. We decided to test q2 weeks. Reasonable I guess considering the area I am in is having a bad time with viral spread. 

Best to everyone. 

That might explain a policy I've heard about positive coworkers able to return to work after a certain amount of time without symptoms without a retest.  Always wondered about that.  

I think because the county I live in had one of the highest rates of nursing home deaths (I live in Florida in an area with a lot of nursing homes) they test every two weeks.  It's been relatively effective as resident infections have dropped dramatically with some homes that had once had bad breakouts going down to zero infections.  Now they know if a resident catches it, it's an employee that brought it in.

I work in a hospital and we are not tested without reason.  About a month ago a nurse tested positive and they tested the coworkers and five of them were positive.  Back in April we had 11 test positive after attending a crew party.  They closed the entire unit.

I've never been tested at work.  I work on a surgical unit designated "never covid" (my dumb luck) and have never had symptoms.   I did go on my own a few weeks ago when they were offering free antibiody testing without a reason and the line (which during the Summer was huge) was low so I went in and got tested for antibiodies just out of curiosity and the nasal swab.  Mercifully both were negative.  

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It is frightening. Heartbreaking too. Working in a hotspot right now. Families are passing it around. I suppose it is reasonable to test every two weeks. We certainly do meet the criteria of exposure over time

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Never.
Actually frequently, but there is no way my place is going to do surveillance. We are short staffed already.  No way in hell everybody will test negative.  Then what?

 

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On 10/24/2020 at 11:25 PM, hherrn said:

Never.
Actually frequently, but there is no way my place is going to do surveillance. We are short staffed already.  No way in hell everybody will test negative.  Then what?

Yes. That is a concern. Still, I don't mind the testing. It is the least we can do to make sure the staff isn't sick and putting patients at risk. I would feel real bad if I was spreading COVID and especially to someone at risk.

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I work in an acute care hospital on a med surge floor that has been caring for COVID-19 patients since March.  We have three hallways with 12 beds in each hall.  There are no routine COVID testing of staff.  We have our temperature screened when arriving for each shift, and our standard PPE when working with COVID 19 patients is N95 mask, face shield, gown and gloves.  Originally we we were all COVID, but as the census got low, the converted two of the hallways back to med surge, and only one hall was COVID.  Now with the increase in COVID patients we are mixing COVID and non COVID patients in the same hall.  I would appreciate comments from others if this is a common practice in other hospitals and if it sounds responsible.

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On 10/25/2020 at 2:38 PM, getoutnride said:

I work in an acute care hospital on a med surge floor that has been caring for COVID-19 patients since March.  We have three hallways with 12 beds in each hall.  There are no routine COVID testing of staff.  We have our temperature screened when arriving for each shift, and our standard PPE when working with COVID 19 patients is N95 mask, face shield, gown and gloves.  Originally we we were all COVID, but as the census got low, the converted two of the hallways back to med surge, and only one hall was COVID.  Now with the increase in COVID patients we are mixing COVID and non COVID patients in the same hall.  I would appreciate comments from others if this is a common practice in other hospitals and if it sounds responsible.

I work on med surg with similar COVID experience. We have converted twice to a full COVID unit. Once COVID census got low, we mixed COVID and regular med surg patients. For example, rooms 1-8 were COVID rooms and 9-15 non-COVID. We don't have hallways. When nurses came on shift, they were assigned to either COVID or regular. Never mixed. The regular patients did not know we had COVID patients on the floor as well... not sure if that's quite ethical. We currently have no COVID positive patients but we do accept PUIs. Usually only have 1 PUI at a time. 

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I go to a free community testing site every 2 weeks to get tested for my own peace of mind. My hospital certainly has no interest in testing me.

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On 10/25/2020 at 11:53 AM, Matthew Prazak said:

Yes. That is a concern. Still, I don't mind the testing. It is the least we can do to make sure the staff isn't sick and putting patients at risk. I would feel real bad if I was spreading COVID and especially to someone at risk.

I agree.

My bosses don't.  Otherwise, we would be tested.

 

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