Northern Arizona Healthcare, the parent company of Flagstaff Medical Center, says it’s developed four tiers for COVID-19 testing to contend with an ongoing shortage of collection and medical supplies.
NAH says equipment to collect of patient specimens varies from day to day.
“The Northern Arizona Healthcare COVID Steering Committee has developed tiered testing guidelines based on CDC guidelines,” says Dr. John Mougin, chief quality officer at NAH, in a press release. “We are adjusting which tiers we are collecting samples for based on whether collection kit supplies are available. We are currently testing Tiers 1,2,3 at NAH facilities,”
The new system prioritizes testing for critically ill patients receiving care with unexplained pneumonia or respiratory failure. Non-critical hospitalized patients and essential healthcare workers suspected of having coronavirus are in the second tier, with those who aren’t hospitalized but displaying symptoms are in the third. In the lowest-priority tier are people who are at lower risk and sick but who don’t require hospitalization.
For more information on the testing tiers, see nahhealth.com.
