-- Woodbury, NY – The Lodestone Covid-19 Global Medical Summit held its sixth emergency online session for over 3,000 front line medical personnel from around the world. The panel was held Wednesday, April 28th at 7 p.m. ET. In this session, expert panelists from New York, Connecticut, Italy, and Seattle shared their experiences in testing over 10,000 patients in hospital and outpatient settings.
The Global Medical Summit is available to medical personnel free of charge.
As lockdowns begin to ease and essential medical personnel return to their clinics, it is absolutely vital that doctors know which tests are accurate and how to use testing as part of an overall strategy to protect their staff and patients. The data presented at this event represents the largest dataset of covid patient tests in the world.
At the session, the experts warned not to trust the accuracy of antibody tests that have not yet been fully approved by the FDA.
“A test that gives the wrong answer is worse than no test at all,” says Steven Palter, MD. Dr. Palter is the director of the Summit. “More than 100 tests have been granted an emergency use authorization (EUA) by the FDA. Governments across the United States hope to rely on these tests to reopen the economy safely. We already know these tests have deep limitations.” What’s worse, Many of the antibody tests cross-react with other coronaviruses and even non coronaviruses.
The tests being commonly advertised are not suitable for use in an outpatient setting as point of care testing. “There have been some offices that are using them and reporting back to patients the results and sometimes even saying congratulations, you’re now immune and can return to work. That’s not what these tests can tell you,” says Jennifer Rakeman-Cagno of the New York City Department of Health.
Rakeman-Cagno warned that no antibody tests granted EUA have been validated to prove immunity. Moreso, they fall under a regulatory category of “high complexity testing” requiring special laboratory approvals.
David Peaper, MD PhD, is a virology reference lab director and professor of laboratory medicine at Yale. He agrees that antibody testing should not be conducted in an outpatient office setting. “Your license and your certification as a CLIA waived lab are at risk for doing those tests in your office. Plus, I think there’s accumulating evidence to say that these tests don’t actually work particularly well for even what they’re intended to do.”
Mark Jarrett, MD MPH, SVP and chief quality officer of Northwell Health, a 29 hospital network in New York that has already tested over 10,000 positive covid-19 patients. He also sounded the alarm that antibody tests are not yet accurate enough. “Nobody knows which is the right antibody test.” Jarrett is hopeful that with more data, the science will develop by mid-summer.
The Lodestone Covid-19 Global Medical Summit is an online, interactive forum for connecting medical personnel who are fighting the pandemic together. Dianne Querbal, the Presidential Appointee to the Covid-19 Task Force, and the White House Liaison to HHS, FEMA, and the USTDA, attended initial sessions of the Summit. “This is a very important gathering,” said Querbal. “To talk to the physician community about what is before us. Together, we face a fearsome, gruesome enemy.”
Scott Sussman, MD, Director of Clinical Operations at Yale, shared his medical hospital network’s protocols for PPE and testing patients for active infection. “Our recommendation and it’s consistent with the CDC is that of universal masking and if there’s any risk of aerosolization or intubation, then using n95 respirator masks.. A negative test should be interpreted with caution. The timing of collection is important with the testing.”
Yale’s strategy is to combine testing with PPE to protect patients and medical personnel in the hospital setting. “The approach that we’re taking is balancing PPE utilization and testing,” Sussman said. “If someone’s going to have an aerosol generating procedure, or intubation, we are testing them. If they’re negative, it doesn’t mean that we don’t use our PPE. If they’re positive, we will perform those procedures in a negative pressure room and make sure that they go to a COVID unit afterwards.”
The experts agreed nasopharyngeal swabs for RNA are the gold standard and newer methods of collections such as oral, saliva, and nasal will increase availability of direct virus tests and decrease risks to health care workers performing them.
The Global Medical Summit uses Lodestone’s proprietary, patented Journal Club Live Platform as featured in the premier science journal, Nature. This platform enables full interactivity between speakers and audience, who share cutting edge data and front line experience. Together the speakers and the audience come up with consensus for immediate clinical action.
“Articles and committee statements lag by weeks and months,” Palter says. “In a crisis of this magnitude, our platform enables clinicians to devise real world solutions in real time. By gathering, analyzing, and disseminating information faster to the right people, we can save lives.”
For each of these sessions, the top experts debate and explore the most vital controversies and issues facing practitioners today. The most important voices the Summit seeks to amplify are the people who are saving lives on the ground.
In addition to the White House Covid-19 Task Force, the NY Dept. of Health, Greater NY Hospital Association, IFFS, Northwell Health, NY State Chapter of American Academy of Pediatrics, NICHD, NYS Perinatal Quality Collaborative, and the March of Dimes are all making the Summit available to constituents.
Past Lodestone events have included participants from over 60 major US academic institutions, 40 nations, and more than 35,000 registrants. Lodestone Technology, Inc., provides medical researchers and practitioners with the tools needed to accelerate new scientific developments.
Contact:
Steven Palter, MD
phone: 516-447-0551
Release ID: 88956222