ABSTRACT
The high demand for COVID-19 diagnosis overwhelmed reference hospitals. Regional laboratories had to incorporate molecular technology to respond to the emergency. This work described the implementation of molecular diagnostic tools and the detection of SARS-CoV-2, in a regional hospital with no previous experience, from October 2020 to March 2022. The laboratory structure was significantly modified. The staff grew from 3 to 4 clinical microbiologists, and from 7 to 17 laboratory technicians to provide 24/7 coverage. A total of 144,442 samples were processed during the period of study. The highest peaks were reached in July 2021 with 25,285 samples processed, and between December 2021 and January 2022, with 32,245. COVID-19 pandemic has represented not only the challenge, but the opportunity to introduce Nucleic Acid Amplification Techniques (NAAT) in inexperienced laboratories. These secondary settings have shown an extraordinary ability to adapt and cannot be left behind in the progress of diagnostic techniques.
Subject(s)
COVID-19 , Humans , SARS-CoV-2 , Laboratories , COVID-19 Testing , Spain , Pandemics , Clinical Laboratory Techniques/methodsABSTRACT
OBJECTIVES: To quantify the workload and cost overload that the COVID-19 pandemic has meant for a Clinical Microbiology laboratory in a real-life scenario. METHODS: We compared the number of samples received, their distribution, the human resources, and the budget of a Microbiology laboratory in the COVID pandemic (March-December 2020) with the same months of the previous year. RESULTS: the total number of samples processed in the Clinical Microbiology laboratory in March to December 2020 increased 96.70% with respect to 2019 (from 246,060 to 483,993 samples), reflecting an increment of 127.50% when expressed as samples/1000 admissions (from 6057 to 13,780). The increase in workload was mainly at the expense of the virology (+2058%) and serology (+86%) areas. Despite additional personnel hiring, the samples processed per technician increased 12.5%. The extra cost attributed to Microbiology amounts to 6,616,511 euros (114.8%). CONCLUSIONS: This is the first study to provide quantitative figures about workload and cost increase caused by the COVID-19 in a Microbiology laboratory.