Consideration 14

14_BroaderRole

14. Exploring a broader role for your OSCTC

OSCTCs present broader opportunities

Consideration

OSCTCs present an opportunity to connect with vulnerable and/or medically underserved community members that may benefit from additional connections to health and social services.

Voices from the Field

“…drive-thru testing programs … are important, but somewhat limited in what they are able to do. I see more of the mobile program as the way forward, because it allows inlet to targeted areas of the community and expanded services that can be provided.”
“We really see these sites as growing much beyond the scope of COVID testing… we see this as really important to build up the resiliency of the community, not just by virtue of COVID testing but by addressing all the fundamental other issues that really contribute to adverse outcomes.”
“... when we are out in the community doing mobile testing and they test positive, what resources are we giving them if they get sicker or they have additional questions …I think that’s an important piece to think about and we’re still working through those pieces.”
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Primary care provider connection

Consideration

OSCTCs can provide opportunities to connect patients with a primary care provider.

Voices from the Field

“I am a fundamental believer that everybody needs a primary care provider … ideally when somebody arrived for testing…we can say ‘do you have a primary care provider’ if they don't, we can say ‘hey here's one in your neighborhood call this clinic’. I'd love to see it done in that way, as opposed were just swabbing you and sending you on your merry way - and we may not call you with the results.”
“At our community test site if someone's coming through and we're calling them for their result and we're telling them to follow up with their primary care doctor, if they don't have a primary care doctor then … we will continue to manage them through tele-visits or…refer them to one of the Safety Net providers for follow-up care and … create those linkages. We could do a better job with that but, that is in place at least to help them navigate to a primary care doctor if they need one.”
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Patient navigation

Consideration

Building in patient navigation to an OSCTC can connect those with unmet social needs to appropriate services.

Voices from the Field

“We take in other information about social determinants and needs related to housing insecurity, food insecurity, utility issues, also referrals and requests around primary care, if needed, as well as assistance with getting their federal government stimulus check or employment opportunities or signing up for healthcare insurance. So, we incorporate navigator and community health worker services in our assessments…”
“…we have navigators on-site that can address the issues that someone identifies on their intake process.”
“I think the nice thing about [ORGANIZATION] is that it's not so big that people only stay in their lane. I think during this time people been able to look at the patient, understand what their needs are, and then look across the organization, including on health plan side to figure out what kind of resources we can hook somebody up with.”
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Flu and catch-up immunizations

Consideration

OSCTCs may offer opportunities to provide needed yearly immunization as well as support catch-up vaccinations.

Voices from the Field

“Meanwhile, you have got all of these people who are not getting vaccinated for preventable diseases and so when flu season comes then you are going to see a big spike in flu because nobody vaccinated. Or you may have measles … reemergence because nobody got the MMR vaccination for the kids or whopping cough.”
“We fell behind in pediatric immunizations and so trying to figure out a way to catch up on those, we don't want to get a measles outbreak.”
“... further down that line have the option to give them a flu vaccine or a COVID vaccine once we have the COVID vaccine, so it becomes, kind of, this one stop shop”
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Additional health screenings

Consideration

Incorporating additional health screening questions during the OSCTC intake process provides an opportunity for additional clinical support.

Voices from the Field

“…we can know when a person registers and does their intake information in real time what their needs are.”
“We also do HIV testing and blood pressure screening and soon further advancements cardio metabolic risk stratification because we do a lot of community-based work in that area”
“We’re having an outbreak in the southeast corner city we’ll send a team there, or in churches on the weekends, or a jail had an outbreak, or nursing home has outbreak this is a more of a strike team.”
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Mental health services

Consideration

Connections to mental health services is another opportunity for OSCTCs.

Voices from the Field

“There are a lot of people that suffer with depression and anxiety and we’re telling them to stay home and isolate themselves from other people.”

Food distribution

Consideration

Individuals coming in for testing may be food insecure.
Partnerships with foodbanks or other food distribution programs may be valuable.

Voices from the Field

“We’ve done a lot of food distribution at testing sites at the early days…the idea behind that was if you are going to have to isolate or quarantine, you can't go to the grocery store. So, we'll assess you for food insecurity when you're getting your test and we'll go ahead and give you a couple of weeks of food in your trunk, just in case … I think was a great idea and concept, it's not super functional particularly with the delays and testing results that we see sometimes and we have other ways of getting food with folks… we have a lot of different avenues for people to get food in [name] county.”
“We also give out food at our sites, canned goods and fresh produce…”
“…we have food and produce distribution on hand.”
“Trying to partner with community resources to provide food to various people.”
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Plasma donation

Consideration

A follow-up option built in during the consenting process may support connecting people to plasma donation services.

Voices from the Field

“... bidirectional communication so we can … potentially reach out to them with any ongoing information that may be of benefit to them or others like sending a link to the Red Cross for donation convalescent plasma to individuals who test positive.”

Research studies

Consideration

OSCTCs may offer opportunities for additional research on COVID-19.

Voices from the Field

“we're collecting a great deal of really usable, actionable, interesting, data. Our primary interest right now is implementation of the testing, but sort of a parallel stream is researchers…if they're interested in research studies. We’re really open to partnerships and giving access to data in a HIPAA … compliant way. And so, we think we're hopefully going to be generating a ton of interesting research out of this.”

Return on investment

Consideration

Capture data to assess the impact of the broader role played by your OSCTC.

Voices from the Field

“…we know the communities we went to and we can track the benefit of this over time. In the end, [our goal] is to create all the econometric analyses that show from a financial standpoint what the ROI is.”
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Off-Site Testing Toolkit Navigation Menu

Off-Site COVID-19 Testing Project home page
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Off-Site COVID-19 Testing Toolkit home page
1. Identify and prioritize the population to be tested
2. Identify and mobilize your partners
3. Determine the type of OSCTC
4. Offer the right type of test
5. Adapt to variations in laboratory capacity and turnaround time
6. Staff Required for OSCTC
7. Build efficiencies into your OSCTC
8. Promote positive patient experience and community awareness
9. Address potential patient access limitations
10. Manage patient results​
11. Plan for weather extremes
12. Provide PPE to staff
13. Financial viability/ sustainability
14. Explore a broader role for your OSCTC
Methodology
Additional Resources
Acknowledgements