Advocate Aurora Health-owned ACL Laboratories will begin processing COVID-19 tests today, with the capacity to perform at least 400 tests daily.
The lab is processing tests for inpatients, emergency department patients authorized for inpatient admission, and Advocate Aurora employees, the health system said. It expects to produce test results within 24 hours.
The tests are being processed at one of the health system’s northern Illinois locations, an Advocare Aurora spokesperson said.
ACL Laboratories’ processing capacity matches that of the Wisconsin State Laboratory of Hygiene – the state’s public health lab in Madison – which is currently able to run as many as 400 tests a day, with a one- to two-day turnaround time.
State public health officials have said other health systems are “in various stages of the process” to be able to test for the virus in their own facilities, rather than sending samples to one of the two public health labs in the state.
To conserve supplies, the Wisconsin Department of Health Services is prioritizing specific tiers of cases, including those who are critically ill, those who have knowingly been exposed to a confirmed COVID-19 patient and health care workers.
