COVINGTON, Ky. — Gravity Diagnostics, a privately held CLIA laboratory headquartered in Covington, Kentucky, is working with the Commonwealth of Kentucky, the United States Department of Health and Human Services, and Kroger Co. as the laboratory processing the COVID-19 samples for the newly launched COVID-19 drive-thru testing sites. The partnership was originally created as an extension of the contract between Gravity Diagnostics and the Commonwealth of Kentucky serving their hospitals, offering 24-48 turnaround times and supplies at time when both are scarce.
Tony Remington, chief executive officer, Julie Brazil, chief operating officer, and Allison Wimmers, chief of staff of Gravity Diagnostics at the Independence, Ky. Kroger drive-thru COVID-19 testing location.
For people to schedule their drive-thru testing appointment, Kroger worked with Microsoft to create a digital registration process at krogerhealth.com/covidtesting. They have opened 10 drive-thru locations throughout the Commonwealth of Kentucky that are each conducting up to 250 COVID-19 tests a day. The testing started with top priority individuals: health care workers, first responders, people 65 and older and those with chronic health conditions; and has since been opened up to all Kentucky residents.
Kroger, Gravity Diagnostics, and the United States Department of Health and Human Services are expanding the program this week outside of the state of Kentucky to states including Ohio, Tennessee, Michigan, and Colorado, bringing the total to 10 locations with 29 drive-thrus across five states.
In an earlier statement, Colleen Lindholz, president of Kroger Health, said that the company’s vision “is to help people live healthier lives, and it has never been more important as we help to expand testing across the commonwealth.”
She added that “we continue to make decisions that balance the safety of our associates with our commitments to our customers and communities. That is why Kroger and The Little Clinic will be donating all professional services at drive-thru testing facilities; these services include ordering and observing the COVID-19 tests.”
“We expect to hit over 2,000 samples processed per day with under 48-hour turnaround time this week and we are confident that will grow that to over 4,000 samples per day in the next two weeks while maintaining our turnaround time,” says Julie Brazil, Chief Operating Officer of Gravity Diagnostics. “As long as we can continue to perform more testing while maintaining our fast reporting, we are not backing down during this critical time where our turnaround time, capacity and ability to quickly implement solutions is needed most. One of the pillars of the Federal Plan to get to the new “normal” is ample testing and we are working hard to help supply that.”
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