Developing an Outpatient Pediatric Pre-Procedure COVID-19 Testing Model.
Katherine O'Connor, Morgan McGee, Mary Gibson and 4 others
PMID 34419219WHAT IT FOUND
Pediatric preprocedure COVID-19 testing screened 1,707 patients, found five positive tests, and weekly volume grew from 10 patients in the first week to over 250 by week 10.
Key findings
011,707 pediatric patients were screened by June 17, 2020, and five tests were positive.
02Screening volume rose from 10 patients in the first week to 45 in the second.
03By week 7, the team screened 216 patients, and by week 10 it screened over 250.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
This is a single-site quality improvement report, not a trial, so it cannot show that the testing model caused safer surgery or fewer exposures. Many parts of the workflow changed at the same time, including testing location, swab rules, scheduling, isolation, family education, transport support, and behavioral plans, so the contribution of any single component cannot be separated. The paper reports numbers screened and positive tests, but not patient surgical outcomes, staff infection rates, cancellation rates with a comparison, or cost. Pandemic guidance, local test availability, and hospital operations changed during the project, so the process may not transfer unchanged to another setting. The report describes one institution's own process.
Declared interests
No funding or conflict-of-interest declaration is given in the supplied text.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read the 1,707 screened and five positive tests as proof that preprocedure testing prevented exposure or improved surgical outcomes. The report has no comparison group and changed many steps together, so it shows what the team did and how volume grew, not that any part caused safety or efficiency gains.