WTEN: St. Peter’s Health Partners to Open Overflow COVID-19 Testing Lab at RPI

WTEN aired a story on Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute partnering with St. Peter’s Health Partners to establish an overflow lab for student and employee testing at Rensselaer.

From the story:

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) has been conducting COVID-19 testing of all residential students twice weekly since the beginning of the fall semester. In addition, they have been conducting contract tracing and quarantining exposed students.

In 13 weeks the college has completed 85,000 tests. A partnership with St. Peter’s Health Partners (SPHP) to create a Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendment (CLIA) overflow lab at the college will help RPI expand its COVID-19 testing capacity, according to the college.

“This extension of the CLIA license to designate the Rensselaer lab as a St. Peter’s overflow lab will now allow our tests to be used as actual diagnostic tests for public health reporting and extends our capability to offer tests to other universities and business partners in the Capital Region,” said RPI President, Shirley Ann Jackson.

“RPI has done an exceptional job controlling the spread of COVID on campus. We’re pleased that they reached out to partner with St. Peter’s to provide students easy access to much-needed testing,” said President and CEO of SPHP, Dr. James K. Reed.

Click here to watch WTEN’s full report.