Mather’s clinical laboratory began onsite testing for COVID-19 on April 17, 2020 using a process known as rapid molecular testing. Positive test results for COVID-19 patients are now available in about five minutes, said Raymond Gulino, DPM, Mather’s administrative director of Pathology and Laboratory Services. Because this test has a significant false negative rate, all samples exhibiting a negative result for the virus are sent to Northwell Health’s Core Lab for confirmation, which takes about 12 hours, Gulino said.

By the end of April, Mather will be able to do its own follow-up tests for negative results using another state-of-the-art molecular test that detects the presence of nucleic acid from the virus. “Once this is complete, I expect the total turnaround time for initial testing and follow-up testing to be completed onsite within two hours from receipt of the sample,” Gulino said.

When we started testing for COVID-19 in the beginning of March, it could take three or four days to get results from New York State labs.

“Shortly thereafter Northwell’s Core Lab started testing and eventually was able to handle almost three thousand tests a day,” he said. Northwell eventually distributed several testing platforms to its hospitals and has been instrumental in providing the necessary chemicals for those tests, thus making test results in minutes or hours possible, he said.