Increasing Community Access to COVID19 Testing: The Establishment of a Dedicated Testing Center at a Suburban Community Hospital

The COVID19 pandemic started and spread quickly. A lag in available testing contributed to rapid spread and impeded public health professionals with disease control. As testing for the disease was developed, only specialized centers were able to perform the testing procedure but lacked resources to obtain specimens. In recognizing this need, our facility created a dedicated testing facility for the virus, with a co objective of maintaining supplies of protective equipment and protecting the facility and staff with a novel disease where exact transmission was still to be discovered