Respiratory Testing

Individual Specimen Pooling

Individual specimen pooling is ideal for employers looking to establish a routine testing protocol for non-symptomatic staff and medical practice testing patients prior to a scheduled procedure.

This process works by collecting a swab, from an asymptomatic individual, and placing it into a tube labeled for that specific person. Once at the lab, we combine those specimens into groups and process them as one pooled specimen. If the pooled specimen is negative, each person receives a diagnostic result of negative. If the pooled sample is positive, we go back and run each specimen individually to find the positive case(s). Then each individual receives a diagnostic result.

This lab technique creates efficiencies and lowers the cost of testing for our clients by 75%, as compared to individual processing.

 

Swab Pooling

Swab pooling, also referred to as pod testing, is a type of surveillance testing offered by PathAI Diagnostics to organizations looking to establish an asymptomatic testing program.

With this method, each person has their own nasal swab; however, up to 20 individual swabs are combined into one tube at the point of collection. If the combined tube is negative, each person is negative. If the tube is positive, the individuals are notified that their pod/group test was positive and each must get individually tested. Pod Testing is a great option for organizations with a low positivity rate, and costs less than $10 per person.