FOX 13 Investigates: How much Utah has paid for TestUtah and what workers said about it

HERRIMAN, Utah — Campbell wonders if these COVID-19 check samples she took on a snowy day in Monticello turned out to be correct.

“It was so chilly contained in the cab the place the exams had been,” Campbell stated. “There’s a risk, none of these [tests] had been correct.”

Campbell says she labored at Nomi Well being’s TestUtah websites from February 2021 to January of this yr, swabbing individuals, operating exams and telling sufferers whether or not they had COVID-19.

She’s hasn’t been the one particular person apprehensive about temperatures and different protocols at TestUtah. A March report from the Facilities For Medicare & Medicaid Providers explains how workers on a number of events didn’t preserve samples and gear correctly maintained.

A Nomi consultant shared with FOX 13 a letter the corporate acquired Friday saying the corporate took corrective motion and is now in compliance with CMS requirements. However TestUtah formally ended March 31. Nomi now operates a fraction of the testing websites in Utah that it did again in March.

Utah has paid Nomi $78 million for TestUtah, based on figures on the state’s transparency web site. Most of that’s for testing.

Nomi has contracts in different states, too. Knowledge from the Facilities Illness Management and Prevention say Nomi has requested the federal authorities for $334 million for testing the uninsured.

The March inspection report, first obtained by FOX 13’s information sharing companions at The Salt Lake Tribune, stated the situations at TestUtah websites created an “Rapid Jeopardy.” Concern about preserving samples and gear on the correct temperature got here up a number of instances within the report.

One testing employee interviewed by FOX 13 Information, who requested she not be recognized as a result of she nonetheless works in well being care, and who labored roughly the identical time as Campbell, stated liquids used to carry out exams would typically be chilly “as a result of we did not have the right gear to retailer something.”

The report famous a “lack of coaching” for workers – one thing additionally relayed by the employees interviewed by FOX 13 Information.

“So being an worker, nearly a complete yr, I’ve accomplished issues, 1,000 other ways,” Campbell stated.

The opposite employee stated: “I will be sincere, I in all probability stated unsuitable info that was simply handed alongside, considering it is the correct info.”

She stated that included telling sufferers fast exams had been extra dependable than maybe they actually had been. In February of this yr, the Utah Division of Well being informed firms working cellular check websites to briefly cease utilizing fast exams resulting from issues about accuracy.

Campbell and the opposite employee apprehensive points at TestUtah aggravated the accuracy issues.

“They’d run out of fuel, and so they’d run out of heating parts,” Campbell stated. “And we might have to love heat them up by our fingers.”

The CMS report says workers had been additionally utilizing disposable hand heaters to warmth up extraction answer.

Campbell, who had no prior well being care expertise, confirmed us pictures she took from her days at TestUtah. One picture exhibits the luggage holding fast exams already opened to allow them to shortly be used on sufferers. The CMS report discovered the identical factor, however the baggage aren’t alleged to be open till samples are able to be taken.

“As a result of they’d count on us to get via automobiles actually shortly, we’d pre-open all of the exams and put them in just a little container and simply seize and go, seize and go, proper,” Campbell defined. “And little did we all know that apparently wasn’t sanitary.”

Nomi was a well being software program firm when the pandemic began. It started COVID testing in 2020.

Gov. Gary Herbert’s workplace negotiated contracts with Nomi. The primary contract was awarded via emergency powers with out taking aggressive bids.

“They went exterior of the customary course of, which was to undergo the company answerable for additional testing,” stated David Sundwall, who directed the Utah Division of Well being from 2005 to 2011.

He says Utah ought to have turned to established testing firms, a few of which already operated within the state.

“And I feel that was shameful,” Sundwall stated of awarding contracts to Nomi. “It was, in my view, misspent state {dollars}.”

Herbert, who left workplace on the finish of 2020, has stated communication between the Division of Well being and procurement workplaces may have been higher however has additionally stated choices needed to be made shortly to manage the pandemic.

Bids had been accepted for the present contract Nomi gained and nonetheless operates beneath.

The CMS inspectors cited one different factor that fast check manufactures warned may give false outcomes. The exams must be learn 15 to twenty minutes after answer is utilized, however workers weren’t all the time studying in that time-frame.

“If there have been unfavourable exams, that may very well be a significant issue for individuals who had COVID and did not understand it,” stated Sundwall.

FOX 13 Information requested an interview with Nomi executives or spokespeople. We had been referred to an interview firm Chief Working Officer Josh Walker performed with FOX 13 Information again in March.

“We’ve actually strict commonplace working procedures that we ask and we prepare our groups and we prepare our groups usually to observe,” Walker stated.

He added: “Your viewers ought to really feel relaxation assured that the websites being operated had been being accomplished rather well with seasoned professionals within the well being care business.”

The employee nonetheless within the well being care business stated of working at TestUtah: “It is such as you form of get thrown into it blind. And also you’re following different blind individuals.”

FOX 13 Information requested the employees what stage of confidence that they had in exams from TestUtah with one being no confidence and 10 being complete confidence. Each employees stated the PCR exams are dependable.

As for the fast exams?

“In all probability like a 3, truthfully, for fast exams,” Campbell stated.

“I’d give the fast check a 3,” the opposite employee stated.

Utah’s contract with Nomi runs to July 2025. If COVID-19 surges once more and the state desires to reboot TestUtah, the bottom price is $75,000 per testing website per 30 days plus $8 for every check, based on the contract.