New COVID-19 tests being used at hospital

Curative oral swabs are now being used at the Drive-Thru COVID-19 Specimen Collection Center at Memorial Hospital of Sweetwater County.

Sweetwater Memorial is transitioning to the new specimen collection system this week. All residents who need to be swabbed for COVID-19 at the drive-thru are asked to first sign on to curative.com and make an appointment. The test is free, made possible by the Wyoming Department of Health, Public Health Division, which is making tests available to swabbing centers through Wyoming’s County Health Departments.

It’s simple:

Go to the curative.com website and register.

Click on Memorial Hospital of Sweetwater County as your nearest testing site and schedule an appointment.

DO NOT have food, drinks, candy, gum, mouthwash, etc. 20 minutes before the swab collection.

Drive up to the swabbing station in front of the hospital at 1200 College Drive at your appointed time. The hospital will have received your information and will have your swab kit waiting for you.

A healthcare worker at the hospital will be prepared to help you with an oral swab. The healthcare worker will oversee the sample collection, which involves coughing to produce enough fluid for a viable sample.

The hospital will send the sample via UPS, along with all of those collected that day, to the Curative test site in California.

When test results are complete, Curative emails the results directly to the patient. The company also passes along the results to Sweetwater Memorial and to the Wyoming Public Health Laboratory.

“It’s a much simpler process,” said MHSC Lab Director Mary Fischer. “Eventually, once everyone is using this system, it can help reduce wait time at the drive-thru.”

It also cuts down on information collection and dissemination of results for the hospital and the state lab.

“Everyone needs to now use the Curative system,” said MHSC Pathologist Dr. Cielette Karn. “Lab workers and swabbing station staff are overwhelmed with drive-thru specimen collection.

“The Cepheid test will no longer be used for procedures occurring outside of its hospital,” Karn said. “For pre-procedure authorization, the hospital can use the Curative and the Cepheid test.”

The Cepheid tests are screened in house, which offers a quicker turn-around time on results. The hospital’s Cepheid tests are in short supply and now only will be used in the hospital for admissions, surgeries and other procedures.

Curative’s test is authorized under the FDA’s Emergency Use Authorization. As of late March, the company said it had notified the FDA of its operation and received approval to operate commercial testing. The test is NOT authorized for unobserved at-home sample collection.

The test is 89.7% accurate, according to Curative. That means if 10 patients have coronavirus, the Curative test would accurately diagnose 9 of those patients as COVID-19 positive.

This makes the Curative test as accurate if not more accurate than the nasopharyngeal test, according to Curative.

If you have questions about MHSC’s new swabbing test, call 307-352-8360 or go to the Coronavirus Update page at sweetwatermemorial.com.