Premier Medical Laboratory Services Announces Return to Pre Omicron Surge Turnaround Times for COVID-19 Test Results

GREENVILLE, S.C., Jan. 27, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- During the recent surge in Omicron cases, Premier Medical Laboratory Services (PMLS) reported a 733% increase in tests being sent to them for processing of results. This caused a backlog and longer turnaround times of test results reported by state health organizations like the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control (SC DHEC) which they serve.

To take immediate action in working through the backlog when the testing delays began, PMLS invested millions of dollars in additional laboratory equipment and hired and trained over 300 employees. Today, the lab is announcing their return to their standard of test results being provided in under 24 – 48 hours, with 95% of test results provided in under 24 hours.

In a press release issued by SC DHEC earlier today, the laboratory's Chief Executive Officer, Kevin Murdock asserted, "Each test that we receive is important to us because we know that it affects someone's quality of life. That's why our team worked tirelessly to hire and train hundreds of South Carolinians and expand our infrastructure so that we could return to our normal turnaround times of results. We hold ourselves to the highest standards as a laboratory and look forward to serving South Carolina's diagnostic testing needs." 

DHEC COVID-19 Coordination Office director Louis Eubank said the clearing of the testing backlogs was welcome news.

"We appreciate the patience of all South Carolinians and the hard work of our lab partners to respond to the challenges presented by the surge in testing demand," Eubank said. "We thank all of our vendors for working diligently to provide timely test results and are optimistic that the adjustments made by all parties will ensure no such backlog occurs again."

PMLS's fast turnaround times in providing results to patients paired with their large capacity for testing are two of the reasons why they have been selected as the choice laboratory to process test results for many COVID-19 testing sites across the state of South Carolina and the United States at large.

As an addition to their other medical diagnostic offerings, at the beginning of the pandemic, PMLS invested in state-of-the-art laboratory equipment and expanded their staff to offer one of the largest testing capacities in the nation. They also launched one of the largest variant surveillance initiatives in the country with the capacity to conduct Next Generation Sequencing, the process of decoding the virus to detect novel variants, on up to 42,000 specimens per week. The laboratory is continuing to expand its infrastructure to best serve the US as a top medical diagnostics laboratory.

For more information on Premier Medical Laboratory Services, please visit www.premedinc.com.

Premier Medical Laboratory Services (PMLS), based in Greenville, South Carolina, is an advanced molecular diagnostics lab fully certified by top laboratory accrediting organizations, including CLIA and COLA. With the most advanced laboratory information systems (LIS) easy to read one-page test result reports are generated with higher accuracy and a customizable report for each client. PMLS prides itself on having some of the most rapid turnaround times for testing results in the industry. Their expansive testing menu includes Pharmacogenomics, COVID-19 testing, Advanced Cardiovascular Testing, Diabetes, Women's Wellness panels, Allergen Specific Ige Blood Testing, Toxicology, and a first of its kind predictive genetic test for type II diabetes, DIABETESPredict. For more information, please visit www.PreMedInc.com 
For more information, please visit www.PreMedInc.com or call 1.866.800.5470.

SOURCE Premier Medical Laboratory Services