Bryan Health plans to take its coronavirus testing capabilities on the road later this week.
Bryan Medical Center CEO John Woodrich said Monday that the health system is fitting out a recreational vehicle to be used as mobile testing site.
The purpose is to "get to those communities maybe where people don't have transportation to come to our hospital," Woodrich said.
He said one of the first places the mobile unit will go is Crete, where Bryan owns the Crete Area Medical Center, but Bryan also will focus on trying to go to underserved neighborhoods in Lincoln.
So far, Bryan has done more than 1,900 COVID-19 tests, the vast majority of which have come from its drive-thru testing clinic near 27th Street and Pine Lake Road.
However, since it increased its capability to 110 tests a day there, it has not come close to reaching capacity.
People are also reading…
Woodrich said there could be a number of reasons for that. There may be no demand for testing beyond the people showing up, there could be transportation issues and there could be language barriers.
He said Bryan is working with the Lincoln-Lancaster County Health Department to see if there are areas of town that are not being served with testing, and it's also taking a look at the demographics of who is coming to its drive-thru site.
If it finds an area of town that seems to be getting missed, then Bryan would look at sending the mobile testing unit there, he said.
Woodrich said Bryan also wants to make sure the mobile unit is available to go to rural communities to do testing in "what we're calling hot spots or areas that we think could potentially become a hot spot."
Despite Bryan's increase in testing capacity over the past few weeks, Woodrich said he does not see a time anytime soon when tests locally will be offered to mildly ill or asymptomatic patients.