How MD Anderson took COVID-19 safety in-house
December 21, 2020
Medically Reviewed | Last reviewed by an MD Anderson Cancer Center medical professional on December 21, 2020
MD Anderson has one of the world’s largest populations of immunocompromised patients. From the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, that meant we could not wait for a national COVID-19 testing strategy or rely on limited commercial supplies of disinfectants and personal protective equipment (PPE).
Instead, we have used our own scientific knowledge, clinical resources, medical supplies and facilities to ensure the health and safety of our patients and workforce members on our campuses.
“We have held ourselves to a higher standard from day one of the pandemic. We have at every step along the way met or exceeded CDC and State of Texas guidelines, taking all necessary precautions to make sure that our patients and employees feel safe when they are on our campuses,” says Welela Tereffe, M.D., MD Anderson’s chief medical executive. “We know cancer doesn’t stop because of COVID-19, and it’s our responsibility to provide cancer screening and care in the safest way possible.”
Eight days in March: In-house COVID-19 testing launch
In March, we made a commitment to providing on-campus COVID-19 diagnostic testing by converting space in our Molecular Diagnostics Laboratory on the Texas Medical Center Campus. At a time when many states were struggling to initiate COVID-19 testing sites for the public, MD Anderson’s laboratory technologists ramped up internal capacity, supplies and their own personal endurance to process up to 150 tests per day.
“The rapid availability of test results – less than 24 hours for MD Anderson patients and employees experiencing symptoms – meant those with confirmed infection could safely be quarantined and medically treated before spreading the virus to others,” says Micah Bhatti, M.D., Ph.D., an assistant professor in Laboratory Medicine.
Within six months, MD Anderson expanded diagnostic testing to our clinical microbiology laboratory, giving us enough in-house capacity within the two laboratories to perform up to 1,200 tests per day.
“It started over a period of only eight days in March,” Bhatti says. “In that short time, our molecular laboratory technologists who normally perform testing for genetic variances in cancer cells pivoted to polymerase chain reaction testing, the gold standard for detecting COVID-19.”
The effort involved intense collaboration among MD Anderson experts in finance, human resources, information technology, security, environmental science, and supply chain management, and enabled our laboratories to ultimately perform more than 55,000 COVID-19 tests by the end of August with an average turnaround time of less than 18 hours.
“For a time, we also accepted specimens from the Texas Department of Emergency Management as well as Harris Health System,” Bhatti says. “We essentially were providing a volume of testing for the state of Texas to support our community as a whole.”
COVID-19 screening and testing to protect our patients and workforce
Today, in-house PCR testing is required for all patients admitted to our hospital or scheduled for a surgery or invasive procedure.
For patients arriving at MD Anderson campuses for other appointments, robust entry screening through a limited number of entry points is used to identified anyone with potential symptoms or exposure to COVID-19. Employees have volunteered or have been assigned or hired to serve as entry screeners since the beginning of the pandemic, and nursing swab teams have mobilized throughout our Texas Medical Center Campus to collect nasopharyngeal samples for patients who require rapid testing.
MD Anderson workforce members can request COVID-19 testing for any reason using a dedicated employee mobile app.
“COVID-19 testing of our employees for any reason, including exposure to someone within their household or someone in the community, means we can quickly identify employees with potential infection before they arrive to campus,” says Elizabeth Frenzel, M.D., professor, Employee Health Services. “We then instruct them on self-quarantining at home to prevent the spread of infection on campus.”
More than 7,000 faculty and staff have taken advantage of on-campus COVID-19 testing since the program began.
Prioritizing PPE – and innovation
Among MD Anderson’s greatest safety initiatives since the beginning of the pandemic is our commitment to ensuring we have sufficient and appropriate PPE at every stage of the pandemic.
Even before the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recognized the effectiveness of wearing cloth masks in the community, MD Anderson secured enough inventory to distribute medical-grade face masks to everyone entering our campuses. And MD Anderson has continued to refine our PPE requirements as the pandemic evolved. Thanks to a coordinated procurement and distribution effort, our campus mask requirements remain among the strongest in the United States.
Our employees have also continuously developed new ways to ensure the safety of our patients during the COVID-19 pandemic, including:
- A diagnostic imaging team in our Cyclotron Radiochemistry Facility formulated ethanol and peroxide-based cleaning solutions when commercial disinfectants were in short supply
- A task force for alternative COVID-19 technologies developed prototypes for 3D-printed face shields
- Team leaders in Environmental Services identified better ways to educate employees on the proper sequence for putting on and removing PPE to prevent the spread of infection
“Everyone came together, and continues to come together, to envelop our patients in a protective bubble so they can continue their cancer treatment journey and recovery,” Bhatti says. “It has been an unprecedented model of teamwork.”
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Topics
COVID-19We have held ourselves to a higher standard from day one of the pandemic.
Welela Tereffe, M.D.
Chief Medical Executive