BOISE, Idaho — St. Luke's Hospital System is ramping up testing for COVID-19 in a big way. As of April 21, they are completing 1,700 tests a day without sending any of them to outside labs.
Because of that, the results are available to individuals as well as community planners much faster. Until recently, St. Luke's says it had to send all specimens to external labs and the average turnaround was three days.
St. Luke's laboratories say they can turn results in two to four hours. However, it was only recently were they able to buy reagents for the tests, which they say were restricted by the Department of Defense.
