ABSTRACT
Confronted with the COVID-19 crisis, healthcare professionals have had to tackle an epidemic crisis of a huge magnitude for which they were not prepared. Medical laboratories have been on the front line, from collecting samples to performing the analysis required to diagnose this new pathology. Responding to the needs and to the urgency of the situation, the authorities relied on the network of private laboratories. In France, private laboratory medicine represents 70% of overall activity, and with a network of more than 4,000 local laboratories, private laboratory medicine has been the cornerstone of the « screen-trace-isolate ¼ strategy. This article gives feedback from private laboratory medicine professionals, directly involved in the reorganization carried out at the pre-analytical, analytical and post-analytical stages, during the crisis from March to October 2020.
Subject(s)
COVID-19/epidemiology , Clinical Laboratory Services/organization & administration , Pandemics , Private Sector/organization & administration , Specimen Handling/standards , COVID-19/diagnosis , Clinical Laboratory Services/standards , Clinical Laboratory Techniques/instrumentation , Clinical Laboratory Techniques/methods , Clinical Laboratory Techniques/standards , Cross Infection/epidemiology , Cross Infection/prevention & control , Equipment Safety/methods , Equipment Safety/standards , France/epidemiology , Hospital Units/organization & administration , Humans , Intersectoral Collaboration , Medical Staff/organization & administration , Medical Staff/standards , Patient Safety/standards , Pre-Analytical Phase/methods , Pre-Analytical Phase/standards , Private Sector/standards , SARS-CoV-2/isolation & purification , Specimen Handling/methodsABSTRACT
The SARS-CoV-2 virus is responsible for an epidemic disease called COVID-19, which was initially evidenced in Wuhan, China, and spread very rapidly in China and around the world. In France, the first isolated case seems now to be reported in December 2019, stage 3 of the COVID-19 epidemic was triggered on March 14th, the start of the planned containment exit from May 11th. Healthcare services have faced a large influx of patients who may be beyond their capacity to receive and care, particularly in the Large-East and Ile-de-France regions. Some patients show an evolution of the disease never observed before with other coronaviruses and develop in a few days a very important inflammatory reaction, which can lead to death of patients. A working group of the French Society of Clinical Biology (SFBC) was set up with the objective of providing updated information on the current status of the biological prescriptions (focusing on biochemistry ones) and their evolution during the epidemic, and of analyzing the biological parameters associated with comorbidities and patient evolution in order to link biological results with medical events. The expanded working group covers all sectors of medical biology in France and extends to the French-speaking world: hospital sectors (CHU and CH, Army Training Hospitals) and the private sector opening a field of view on the biological situation in establishments for dependent elderly, social establishments and clinical medical institutions. The purpose of this article is the presentation of this working group and its immediate and future actions.