OHA Announces Distribution of Additional COVID-19 Rapid Testing Instruments, May 13

Tuesday, May 12, the Oregon Health Authority announced that it has distributed 12 additional Abbott ID NOW rapid testing instruments to various healthcare providers around the state. OHA distributed the first three of a federal shipment of 15 in April but was unable to send the remaining 12 until now because of a lack of test supplies. Now the state has received enough test supplies to distribute all 15 machines and continue to supply them going forward.  The 12 additional sites receiving an Abbott ID NOW instrument and test kits include: Asher Community Health Center (Wheeler County); Bay Area Hospital (Coos County); Blue Mountain Hospital (Grant County); Grande Ronde Hospital (Union County); Mercy Medical Center (Douglas County); Mirasol Family Health Center (Umatilla County); Northwest Human Services (Marion County); Salud Medical Center (Marion County); Sky Lakes Medical Center (Klamath County); Wallowa Memorial Hospital (Wallowa County); West Valley Hospital (Polk County); Woodburn Ambulance (Marion County). “As we begin to gradually reopen our communities, rapid testing will be a key tool to help ensure counties can stay open and quickly identify, treat, and isolate new cases of COVID-19,” said Governor Kate Brown. “Now that the federal government has finally supplied Oregon with the testing materials needed to run these Abbott ID NOW machines, we can deploy these instruments to hospitals across the state to bring additional testing capacity to counties.” These machines will significantly improve the capacity for testing in these communities by allowing greater access to local testing and ensuring that the test specimens do not have to be shipped to distant labs for processing. The point-of-care COVID-19 testing machines are capable of returning positive or negative test results in roughly 15 minutes. OHA distributed Abbott ID NOW instruments resources based on the following criteria: Areas of the state with no access to COVID-19 testing. Areas of the state with a limited number of first responders. Areas of the state where courier services for the state public health lab and commercial labs are limited or unavailable. Areas with a high population of older adults and other at-risk groups. In the initial shipment, Oregon received only five boxes of test kits with 24 tests in each box. These were distributed to the first three sites in rural Oregon. Now, Oregon has received an additional 90 boxes and has learned that the CDC International Reagent Resource (IRR) will supply states with 50 test kits and six controls through an automatic shipment each week until further notice. OHA will distribute those supplies to the testing locations going forward.  The first three instruments went to Curry General Hospital in Curry County, Pioneer Memorial Hospital in Morrow County and Lake District Hospital in Lake County.