• Lucas Fuentes, Nigam Shah, Sara Kelly, Glenn Harnett, and Kevin A Schulman.
• From Department of Electrical Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, CA (LF); Department of Biomedical Informatics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA (NS); Clinical Excellence Research Center, Stanford University, Stanford, CA (SK); Department of Medicine, Stanford University, Stanford, CA (KS).
• J Am Board Fam Med. 2022 Jan 1; 35 (1): 96-101.

BackgroundMolecular tests (ie, real-time polymerase chain reaction [RT-PCR]) and antigen tests are used to detect SARS-CoV-2. RT-PCR tests are generally considered to be the standard for clinical diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2 due to accuracy and reliability but can take longer to return results than antigen tests. Our aim was to examine if point-of-care (POC) testing for SARS-CoV-2 infection would provide a flexible resource to help achieve workplace safety. We compared test results and time-to-test results between a POC RT-PCR test and a send-out PCR test in a program implemented in summer 2020.ResultsPOC testing shortened the time to results to 110 minutes in the POC setting from the 754 minutes for send-out tests. The specificity of POC RT-PCR single POC testing was 98.7% compared with send-out RT-PCR testing and was confirmed at 99.8% in a validation analysis. The sensitivity of the POC testing was 100% compared with send-out RT-PCR, although in a validation analysis, sensitivity appeared as 0% because only the 12 positive or indeterminate samples on the first analysis were retested and the majority were false-positives that were correctly ruled out.ConclusionsPOC testing for SARS-CoV-2 with RT-PCR technology is possible at reduced time compared with send-out PCR testing.© Copyright 2022 by the American Board of Family Medicine.

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