Influential body tells hospitals: Stop mass testing for Covid, it’s a waste of doctors’ money and time
- Doctors said the asymptomatic testing policy increased ED wait times
- The policies many hospitals are pursuing during the pandemic are also too costly
- Testing should continue for people with compromised immune systems
An influential panel of infectious disease experts recommended hospitals stop testing all new admissions for Covid, a move they say is too costly for patients and providers.
Revised guidelines from the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America reversed course from early pandemic guidelines, which urged hospitals to keep a close eye on who walks in their doors with Covid-19.
However, such a policy has little to no benefit if other mitigation measures such as masks and proper ventilation are followed, and increases the cost burden on healthcare systems.
They included citing studies showing that pre-enrollment screening can actually affect a patient’s ability to get the care they need and does little to prevent transmission.
This comes shortly after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention rolled back guidance on Covid-19 isolation and announced that vaccinated Americans exposed to the virus will no longer need to isolate for five days as long as they wear a mask indoors .
An influential panel of experts, Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America, is now advising hospitals against onerous tests, which increase hospital wait times and overcrowding, as well as the financial burden of the twin epidemic
They also found that a hospital policy for universal Covid-19 testing is causing delays in emergency rooms, causing patients to wait longer for care. Hospitals dealing with an influx of flu, RSV and Covid patients cannot afford to have an emergency room overcrowded with people who do not have access to specialized care.
The expert panel wrote: “The use of asymptomatic screening is a unique but resource-intensive tool that has arguably been overused.
The new guideline was published in the journal Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology.
“While preventing the health-related spread of respiratory pathogens is imperative, we must critically evaluate interventions that, when added at core levels of infection prevention, may not have the intended effect and may have unintended consequences for patients and healthcare professionals. “
The new guidelines are sure to be controversial as they promote the elimination of an early virus mitigation mainstay. A variety of hospitals across the US have been testing new admissions as well as patients scheduled for surgery to reduce the risk of complications.
But with the advent of highly effective vaccines and antiviral treatments, hospital admissions for Covid-19 have fallen dramatically from their levels less than two years ago.
“In light of increased population immunity to SARS-CoV-2, milder clinical outcomes, greater access to effective vaccines and therapeutics, and increasing published experience with asymptomatic screening, it is important to assess the impact of this intervention and how it translates into infection Prevention programs are moving forward,” the group wrote.
Pre-admission Covid screening adds distressing delays in delivering the medical care sick patients need. A May 2022 study by the Cook County Department of Emergency Medicine in Illinois reported that routine asymptomatic Covid testing increased patients’ time in the emergency department waiting room by an average of about seven hours.
Politics is also expensive. Each test costs about $54 to administer. Testing every patient that walks through hospital doors is a prohibitively expensive undertaking. The authors cited an encouraging study published by Spanish scientists that said screening only a quarter of new patients had no adverse effects on virus transmission.
dr Thomas Talbot, an epidemiologist at Vanderbilt University and a member of the SHEA board, said: “The small benefits that could accrue from asymptomatic testing at this stage of the pandemic are being offset by the potential harms of delays in procedures and delays in patient transfers and.” Burdens on laboratory capacity and staff.’
However, the board did not recommend a universal end to pre-admission screening and said patients at higher risk of developing severe Covid-19, such as organ transplant and cancer patients, should continue to be tested.