UT Health San Antonio faculty helped to design, build and expedite COVID–19 testing that provides test results more quickly than most other local labs. 

“We can do up to 120 COVID tests per day currently with high accuracy,” said Robert Leverence, M.D., chief medical officer of UT Health Physicians. The new test is meeting the needs of University Hospital, UT Health Physicians and the University Health System practice, he said.   

“Ultimately, we want to double or triple the number of tests performed daily once high-volume technology is acquired. Such technology is not currently readily available,” he said. “That will be a significant contribution to the demand for community health screening.”   

The San Antonio Metropolitan Health District is using the lab at UT Health San Antonio/University Health System to run the COVID-19 test on the city’s first responders and health care workers.   

UT Health San Antonio’s turnaround time is among the best locally, with results back the same day. For most other local COVID tests, it’s at least two or three days. 

“We started developing our test at the beginning of March when we had our first case in Texas,” Dr. Leverence said. “We realized that testing was going to be critically important, and that we needed to provide this for our patients and community.  

“Until we and others can scale up to test all the people needing to be tested, social distancing is absolutely critical.”  

Kristin Fiebelkorn, M.D., professor in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, led the team of pathologists and laboratory staff who developed and implemented the new COVID-19 test.