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Implementation of a Nurse Practitioner-Led Drive-Through COVID-19 Testing Site

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nurpra.2020.10.004Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Redeployed nurse practitioners can effectively provide clinical leadership in COVID-19 testing sites.

  • Drive-through COVID-19 testing allows for rapid testing of high volumes of patients.

  • Drive-through testing is cost-effective and generates positive clinical outcomes.

  • Drive-through testing uses substantially less personal protective equipment than traditional clinics.

  • Nurse practitioners are collaborative and adaptable, qualities essential to the COVID-19 response.

Abstract

Efficient strategies for testing large numbers of patients must be developed to limit the spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). We demonstrate that our drive-through model is an efficient method of testing large numbers of patients during a pandemic. In the drive-through, cost per patient and personal protective equipment use were significantly less than in 3 brick-and-mortar clinics providing testing. We provide an example of effective nurse practitioner leadership in a drive-through testing site and demonstrate that nurse practitioners are ideally suited to provide leadership given their adaptability, ability to function in a variety of settings, and extensive experience with care coordination and logistics.

Keywords

COVID-19
drive-through
efficiency
nurse practitioner
testing

Cited by (0)

Both authors are at the University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, California. Kathryn Schultz Dippel, MSN, AGACNP-BC, is a nurse practitioner fellow and can be contacted at [email protected]., Emily Katherine Kelly, MSN, AGACNP-BC is a nurse practitioner fellow.

In compliance with national ethical guidelines, the authors report no relationships with business or industry that would pose a conflict of interest.

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