Point-of-care testing model keeps schools open and communities safe

In mid-November, much of Western New York was designated an “Orange Zone” due to quickly escalating COVID-19 rates. For Latko, this meant her sons’ schools would be required to test a minimum of 20% of their population on a rolling basis to remain open--a challenging task.

Her business, Niagara Apothecary, was already registered as a limited service laboratory for COVID-19 point-of-care (POC) testing. She had the supplies, the staff and the skill. She spent her Thanksgiving holiday planning a testing model for the schools, bringing nurses, technicians and support staff on board.

Within a day of the POC testing at her sons’ schools, she was contacted by dozens of administrators from other schools to do the same. Her model was widely implemented and allowed ten private and Catholic schools in Erie County to remain open.

The POC testing at schools is only her morning job. She spends the rest of her day working at Niagara Apothecary, continuing COVID-19 testing and counseling patients. Fifteen to eighteen-hour days have become her new normal.

“There’s a lot of fear right now,” she says. “As pharmacists, we’re the most accessible health care providers in the community and we know how to talk to patients to ease those worries.”

Latko monitors all of the POC test results to assist with contact tracing. Out of the more than 1,800 students and teachers she has tested, only a handful have been positive for COVID-19. But results from Niagara Apothecary have been different.

“The most positive cases, by far, have come from community testing,” she says. “Thanksgiving family gatherings definitely caused an uptick.”

She’s also thinking ahead to the COVID-19 vaccine rollout. When her patients come in for flu, pneumonia or shingles vaccines, she adds them to a database to keep track of those who are most in need of the new vaccine.

Pharmacies will start administering the vaccine in Phase 2 of the state’s plan. Thanks to the efforts of Clinical Assistant Professor Christopher Daly, PharmD/MBA ’12, and his work with the Community Pharmacy Enhanced Services Networks, a clinically integrated network of community pharmacies, Latko and her team at Niagara Apothecary will be ready on day one to immunize the people of Western New York.

“This has been the most rewarding part of my career,” she says. “It’s a way to give back.”