Hi Connie,
I can speak for Legacy - about a month ago we stopped all pre-procedure testing on asymptomatic patients. A few of our surgeons had connections with other large centers across the US where testing had stopped but had also shared some literature. I'm not sure if the final results of the most recent study have been published but it's an ongoing study from the COVIDSurg Collaborative - data from 2020, 2021, and 2022. This is info from one of our surgeons that she shared with our internal staff:
When evaluating the latest study, we considered the significant reduction in mortality and postoperative pulmonary complications in asymptomatic patients, the potential harms of surgical delay combined with the low prevalence of preprocedural positives in our surgical patients (even at the peak surge the positivity rate was 1-2%) and we have determined that the data no longer supports asymptomatic preoperative testing for surgery patients.
I think the most recent article from SHEA was helpful as well:
https://shea-online.org/pre-procedure-and-pre-admission-covid-19-testing-no-longer-recommended-for-asymptomatic-patients/
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Susan Diskin MSN, RN, CIC | Infection Prevention and Control
Manager Infection Prevention and Control - Legacy Health
Phone: (503) 415-4881 | E-Mail:
sdiskin@lhs.org------------------------------
Original Message:
Sent: 01-10-2023 12:41
From: Connie Jubitz
Subject: Pre-procedure COVID testing
A few months ago at an OSWAPIC meeting, there was a presentation summarizing which large hospital systems are still doing pre-procedure/surgery COVID testing, or how that has changed. We have stopped testing for some procedures, but are still testing for others. Is there a way we could revisit that topic, and share any relevant studies or official guidance that helped people make those decisions?
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Connie Jubitz BSN RN
Mid Columbia Medical Center
The Dalles, Oregon 97058
(541)296-7398
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