Protecting residents and employees at senior living facilities from COVID-19 can be a daunting task, with few easy or affordable solutions. Geosyntec has developed a powerful new tool to help senior living facilities protect their residents and employees in these difficult times with early, rapid and inexpensive detection of COVID-19: Pooled Saliva Surveillance.

As a result of these efforts, Geosyntec and SiREM received two of Environmental Business Journal’s Business Achievement Awards. The first, for Outstanding Business Performance in 2020 for COVID Response: Repurposing our Genetics Lab, and the second for Information Technology: Support for Data Driven Decisions. These recognitions are a testament to our clients’ proactive and innovative efforts to deploy tools to protect their communities and stakeholders.

Andy Kohlberg, Chief Executive Officer of Kisco Senior Living, recently spoke about Kisco’s implementation of COVID-19 pooled saliva surveillance. “We are the first senior living company to provide this service to our residents and associates, ensuring they remain safe and healthy while giving us the flexibility to return to a new level of normalcy at the communities. We pride ourselves as a company that goes above and beyond, and this is another example of how we are setting ourselves apart from the rest of the industry.” Read more in the article at https://www.kiscoseniorliving.com/creating-safety-bubble-at-kisco-senior-living/.

Pooled Saliva Surveillance can quickly screen a large number of residents and employees in a single sample to determine if COVID-19 is present in the group, even with pre-symptomatic and asymptomatic individuals. The Pooled Saliva test can substantially reduce testing costs and effort versus testing all employees individually, up to 100 individuals can be tested in a single sample, although most clients use pool sizes containing less than 50 individuals. Results are available in less than 24 hours from sample receipt, and the acquisition of saliva samples is far less intrusive, confusing, and stressful than the current nasal swab methodology used for individual clinical tests.

“Frequent testing provides a level of assurance that the presence of COVID can be identified quickly,” said Ed Ward, Vice President of Operations at Kisco Senior Living. “This approach is sustainable, relatively inexpensive and requires minimal extra work for staff. Before saliva testing, nurses were conducting nasal tests and were spending upwards of 20 hours per week administering the tests. With this new testing strategy, anyone on staff can collect the samples, giving nurses time back in their days to focus on resident care.” Read more in the article at https://www.kiscoseniorliving.com/creating-safety-bubble-at-kisco-senior-living/.

Pooled Saliva Surveillance analyzes populations for the presence or absence of SARS-CoV-2 virus. In Canada, sample collection must be performed under the supervision of a qualified medical professional. Surveillance results indicating the presence of SARS-CoV-2 in a sample requires subsequent diagnostic testing of individuals by a laboratory licensed to conduct medical tests.

In these challenging times, we understand our at-risk clients are counting on us and on our lab to keep them and their residents, patients, coworkers, and students safe. We truly seek to make a difference.

As new challenges emerge, Geosyntec continues to innovate. Our SiREM lab now offers specific variant testing for mutations of the SARS-CoV-2 Virus the virus that causes COVID-19. We successfully launched monitoring programs for wastewater monitoring in municipalities, university campuses and communities across the country informing decisions makers of the prevalence of the virus in their community and the effectiveness of safety measures. Now, as vaccination programs are implemented and restrictions are lifted, wastewater surveillance has become a valuable tool to monitor the efficacy of vaccinations in communities and track reductions in prevalence. Simple sample collection and testing can also monitor the introduction of new variants and measure trends and prevalence in communities and on campuses to identify potential risks from virus mutations to quickly and inexpensively deliver information to community leaders and public health officials to support data-driven decisions.

More Information

About Kisco Senior Living: https://www.kiscoseniorliving.com
About pooled saliva surveillance: https://www.geosyntec.com/COVID-19/covid-19-services-pooled-saliva-surveillance