Employee drive-through testing clinic: Consistent with what we are seeing in the broader community, we have seen a small percentage of employees test positive for COVID-19. To date, we have tested over 1,100 University of Washington employees, faculty and students with symptoms of respiratory infection in our drive-through clinics.
Of the few clinical staff with symptoms who have tested positive (at Harborview, Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, UWMC – Montlake and UWMC –Northwest), the sources of transmission have been a mix of unknown and community exposures. A very small number have been linked to a healthcare exposure in the absence of PPE in a single unit.
Importantly, the proportion of COVID-19 in UW Medicine healthcare workers has been lower than that seen in the general patient population undergoing testing at the UW Medicine Virology Lab. Our thoughts go out to our colleagues who have become ill during this time, and we are working hard to ensure that any employee with COVID-19 symptoms has rapid access to testing.
Clinical Protocols and Processes: We continue to update our UW Medicine COVID-19 website as a central repository for COVID-19 resources. The following new documents are now available:
- UW Medicine Treatment Guidelines for SARS-CoV-2 Infection/COVID-19 (Revised 3/19/20)
- Guidelines for Limited Reuse of N95 Respirators and PAPR Hoods
- UW Department of Emergency Medicine ED/ICU COVID-19 Guide
- Anesthetic and Airway Care
- Revised ECMO protocol
- Neonatal Care Protocols
- Patient Transfer Process
- UWM Employee Self-Attestation of no COVID-19 symptoms
