IN-HOUSE TESTING PROGRAM ESTABLISHED

Faculty and staff from our department helped establish an in-house testing program for our clinical partner, The University of Kansas Health System (TUKHS). In March the Special Chemistry team, led by Rachael Liesman, Ph.D., initiated a round-the-clock, three-day project to repurpose two existing lab instruments to perform molecular diagnostic testing for COVID-19. Since that time, the Special Chemistry and Microbiology teams, in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, have tested over 105,000 specimens using 4 different COVID-19 assays to provide rapid and accurate testing to TUKHS as well as community and hospital partners across the state of Kansas. This has tremdously improved our patient care in the region.

By October 2020 these amazing laboratory professionals had processed and completed more than 100,000 COVID-19 PCR tests!

L-R:  MK2 Group, Micro Group, Franken Lab

Daily COVID-19 tests in the Microbiology Laboratory, Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, University of Kansas Medical Center (Since March 2020).