How Atlas Genomics Supported the Tahoma School District’s COVID-19 Testing Program and How Other Clinical Laboratories Can Follow Suit

Editor's Note: This case study, originally published on July 27, 2022, highlights how the Atlas Genomics partnership with LigoLab and the utilization of the TestDirectly Direct-to-Consumer Lab Testing Web Portal helped the Tahoma School District quickly implement a comprehensive and school-friendly COVID-19 testing program.

The Lasting Impact of COVID-19 on Education: From Global Pandemic to Learning Loss

March 11, 2020, marked the beginning of an era that will remain imprinted on the world's psyche for generations: the day the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak a global pandemic. Millions of lives were lost globally, and countless businesses were shuttered.

For educators in the United States, the pandemic prompted nationwide school closures and a sudden transition to virtual learning for all K-12 schools. By the fall of 2020, some schools were able to offer in-person or hybrid learning opportunities. However, facing the Delta variant in late 2020 and early 2021, education experts feared that learning loss would become a growing crisis if K-12 students continued to learn remotely.

A May 2020 study published by Brown University put weight behind these fears, hypothesizing that virtual learners would likely return to school with 63 to 68 percent of the learning gains in reading relative to a typical school year, and 37 to 50 percent of the learning gains in math.

Making the Case for School Screening and Diagnostic Testing

Atlas Genomics Answers the Call

U.S. educators were eager to find a way forward in the safest and least disruptive way possible. For public health officials, diagnostic laboratories like Seattle-based Atlas Genomics would play a key role.

In early 2021, the high-complexity molecular diagnostics laboratory was called on by the Washington State Department of Health (DOH) and school districts throughout the state to administer COVID-19 screening and diagnostic testing as part of the Learn to Return program, which included over 500 school partners that teamed up with the DOH to implement school-based COVID testing to maximize in-person learning.

The Pilot Program

Public health and government officials recognized that widespread COVID-19 testing would be essential to safely returning students to the classroom. In the spring of 2021, Atlas Genomics launched a pilot school testing program in partnership with a district comprising 30 schools and roughly 25,000 students.

The program focused on pooled COVID-19 testing, a method that combines up to 25 individual swabs into a single specimen tube. Once collected, pooled samples were sent to the lab for analysis, with results automatically reported to all relevant stakeholders, ensuring efficiency, speed, and transparency. The pilot program laid the groundwork for the lab's subsequent partnership with the Tahoma School District. 

The Tahoma School District and Atlas Genomics Partnership 

How Atlas Became a Vendor of Choice for Learn to Return

The Washington State DOH conducted a rigorous vetting process to select COVID-19 testing vendors to support the Learn to Return initiative. The program called for schools to use a modified quarantine for unvaccinated students identified as being in close contact with someone who had tested positive, enabling those with testing consent to remain in school if they tested negative twice within a set protocol.

Thanks to the success of its pilot program, Atlas Genomics became a vendor of choice for the initiative, offering local in-state testing solutions and support for school districts entering the new school year.

A Growing Crisis in Maple Valley

Tahoma School District, located in Maple Valley, Washington, and serving approximately 8,600 students from preschool through 12th grade, needed a partner to halt a growing crisis as a new variant ignited a third outbreak of COVID-19 in the fall of 2021.

"By the end of summer, it looked like the pandemic was subsiding and that we were in for an easy transition back to in-person learning," recalled Tahoma School District's COVID Supervisor Kyle Hood. "But then the new variant hit, and things progressed quickly. That's when state and local health jurisdictions started rolling out school screening measures."

How the School Screening and Diagnostic Testing Program Worked

A Daily Snapshot of Community Health

Screening and diagnostic testing enabled educators to get a daily snapshot of the entire student population and quickly act to prevent potential virus outbreaks.

"Our screening and diagnostic testing program provided free COVID-19 tests at school sites to students whose parent or guardian opted them into the program by submitting consent," explained Hood. "Routine testing provided the community with an accurate representation of the prevalence of COVID-19 and helped our schools remain open and safe."

Privacy, Parental Choice, and the Test-to-Stay Protocol

The program was designed with privacy and parental choice in mind. All individual identities were kept strictly confidential, with only the school district maintaining administrative records of positive test results.

For unvaccinated individuals identified as close contacts, the protocol offered two options: a 10-day quarantine or participation in a test-to-stay program, which enabled students to continue attending classes as long as they consistently tested negative.

Preserving Thousands of Classroom Hours

"If students who came into close contact with someone who tested positive for COVID-19 didn't have symptoms and remained negative, they didn't have to be quarantined," noted Hood. "The students were allowed to stay on campus as long as they tested negative two times within seven days."

The program saved thousands of educational hours that the team would have lost to precautionary quarantine.

TestDirectly Made Testing at Scale a Reality

The Scale of the Challenge

One of the most pressing challenges for the Tahoma School District was managing the rapid and widespread transmission of the new COVID-19 variant throughout the community.

"In December of 2021, we had 356 positive cases in our district, including staff and students," said district COVID Coordinator Mikki Roessler. "By January 2022, we were up to 981 positive cases, with roughly 2,200 close contacts."

How TestDirectly Delivered at Volume

To help manage this volume, Atlas Genomics and Tahoma School District teamed up with TestDirectly, LigoLab's direct-to-consumer lab testing portal, to streamline collection, testing, and reporting processes.

Thanks to this partnership, the advantages of the molecular lab testing software became clear early on. The lab consistently processed and reported an average of 1,000 specimen samples each week, with results delivered within 24 hours of specimen arrival. This turnaround time demonstrated both the speed and efficiency of the TestDirectly platform at scale.

TestDirectly Case Study: How Avero Diagnostics Embraced Laboratory Information System Innovation and Won a Statewide Testing Contract

Why TestDirectly Was the Right Tool for the Job

TestDirectly is a vendor-neutral direct-to-consumer lab testing web portal developed by LigoLab for specialty testing services such as the Learn to Return program. The innovative diagnostic lab software solution eliminates the potential for errors and the accessioning bottleneck, removing clinical lab workflow barriers that would otherwise prevent a lab like Atlas from scaling its operations to serve its community.

Moreover, the user-friendly direct-to-consumer lab testing portal integrates with all leading LIS laboratory information system software, with training, implementation, and go-live all accomplished in as little as two weeks.

Discover More: Highlighting the Versatility of the TestDirectly Direct-to-Consumer Lab Testing Portal

The Power of Molecular Lab Software Partnership 

A Partnership Built on Performance

The Atlas Genomics molecular lab software partnership with TestDirectly dates back to the fall of 2020. According to Casey Marvin, the lab's Program Manager for Washington State Schools, the partnership has been a great fit for the lab and its clients.

"We've been able to dramatically increase the productivity of all our school testing programs with TestDirectly," said Marvin, whose school customers numbered in the hundreds for the 2021 to 2022 school year. "The number of specimens we can handle, and our turnaround times, have contributed to keeping Washington students safe and in school."

Marvin said he continues to receive positive feedback from school administrators enrolled in the school testing program, especially for onboarding and efficiency.

"The team at TestDirectly provided phenomenal customer service and training. They were extremely responsive, especially during the Omicron surge," he said. "When something needed to happen, it happened quickly and positively."

Parent and Guardian Buy-In Ultimately Made the Program a Success

Reassuring a Frightened Community

"Once they became familiar with the Learn to Return program, the district's parents and guardians responded positively," said Marvin. "We knew that for this to work, we needed to provide personal care. The community was scared. We knew we needed to do everything to reassure them that this partnership would keep their kids safe at school."

After adults learned how easy it was to use TestDirectly and opt into the program, they quickly adopted it.

At the onset of the Omicron outbreak, the Tahoma School District established a dedicated COVID-19 Response Team, along with a phone line and email address, to provide parents with a direct channel for questions, concerns, and support. TestDirectly powered the scheduling process, enabling parents to book testing appointments while seamlessly connecting Atlas Genomics with the district's COVID Response Team for specimen processing and timely delivery of laboratory results. 

Organizational Safety Made Easy With Direct-to-Consumer Lab Testing

TestDirectly is an all-in-one direct-to-consumer lab testing solution that replaces paper forms and manual processes with an electronic clinical lab workflow, significantly reducing the potential for reporting errors while enabling direct-to-consumer labs to increase volumes without sacrificing turnaround times.

The TestDirectly portal features access control functionality, allowing administrators to access results by facility, staff, students, or any other attribute, and automatically delivers test results to all stakeholders, including parents, guardians, school administrators, and public health agencies.

"The platform covers all aspects of direct-to-consumer lab testing and organizational specimen collection, testing, and reporting," said Adam Carlin, TestDirectly's Director of Implementation and Support. "TestDirectly keeps schools safe and students in class, and it fully supports laboratories at every stage."

Learn More About TestDirectly

TestDirectly is an easy-to-use direct-to-consumer lab testing portal that provides turnkey point-of-care testing and clinical laboratory management solutions, connecting medical laboratories and collection centers with patients, physicians, schools, employers, organizations, and government agencies.

TestDirectly creates automation that eliminates bottlenecks and supports specimen collection and processing, the generation and delivery of consumer lab reports, and payment and compliance management, all while delivering a better patient experience.

LigoLab's Comprehensive Laboratory Information System Software Suite for Lab Informatics

With the LigoLab Informatics Platform and the TestDirectly direct-to-consumer lab testing portal, medical laboratories receive more than just expertise from a seasoned laboratory information system software provider. LigoLab is an LIS company with a well-earned reputation for creating and delivering cutting-edge diagnostic lab software solutions that enhance operational efficiency, cut labor costs, facilitate growth, and empower labs to engage directly with patients for testing.

Ready to Bring This LIS Model into Your Laboratory?

Arrange a brief consultation with a LigoLab product specialist to discover how LigoLab's LIS software solutions and direct-to-consumer lab testing services can help your lab business stand out among competitors, expand operations, and increase profitability.

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Frequently Asked Questions About School-Based COVID Testing and the TestDirectly Direct-to-Consumer Lab Testing Platform

What was the Learn to Return program, and how did Atlas Genomics support it?

Learn to Return was a Washington State Department of Health initiative with over 500 school districts to implement COVID-19 testing programs that allowed students to return to in-person learning safely. Atlas Genomics, a high-complexity molecular diagnostics laboratory based in Seattle, became a vendor of choice for the initiative by demonstrating the capacity and reliability needed to serve school districts at scale. Atlas provided pooled COVID-19 testing, rapid results reporting, and full stakeholder communication through the TestDirectly platform.

What is pooled COVID-19 testing, and why was it used in school settings?

Pooled testing enables labs to screen large populations quickly and cost-effectively. If a pooled sample tests negative, all individuals in the pool are cleared simultaneously. If the result is positive, reflex testing is performed on individual samples to identify the specific source of infection. This method enabled Atlas Genomics and the Tahoma School District to screen large student and staff populations efficiently while managing costs and conserving testing resources.

How did the test-to-stay protocol work for close contacts in the Tahoma School District?

When staff identified students as close contacts of a COVID-positive individual, they gave them two options: a 10-day quarantine or participation in the test-to-stay program. Under test-to-stay, unvaccinated students who were asymptomatic could remain in school as long as they tested negative twice within seven days. This protocol preserved thousands of classroom hours that the school community would have lost to precautionary quarantine, a significant benefit for both student learning outcomes and working parents.

How did TestDirectly enable Atlas Genomics to process 1,000 specimens per week with 24-hour turnaround?

TestDirectly replaced paper-based requisitions and manual data entry with a fully electronic clinical lab workflow, enabling patients and students to self-register digitally before arriving at collection sites. Specimens arrived at the lab pre-associated with complete electronic orders, eliminating a bottleneck at accessioning and allowing staff to scan and process samples immediately. This streamlined intake process enabled Atlas to consistently process and report approximately 1,000 specimens per week, with results delivered within 24 hours of specimen arrival.

How quickly can TestDirectly be implemented in a new laboratory or testing program?

TestDirectly can be deployed and fully operational, including training, system integration, and go-live, in as little as two weeks. This rapid implementation timeline made it particularly valuable during the COVID-19 pandemic, when schools and labs needed to launch large-scale testing programs quickly in response to new variant surges. The platform's vendor-neutral architecture ensures it integrates seamlessly with all existing LIS laboratory information system software without requiring a complete technology overhaul.

How did TestDirectly support parent and guardian engagement in the Tahoma testing program?

TestDirectly served as the patient-facing engine of the program, enabling parents and guardians to consent to their child's participation, schedule test appointments, and receive results automatically through email or SMS notifications when consumer lab reports were ready. The platform's simplicity was a key factor in driving adoption; once parents learned how easy it was to register and opt in, acceptance of the program grew rapidly. The Tahoma District complemented the platform with a dedicated COVID Response Team offering a direct phone line and email address to address community concerns.

What other testing scenarios beyond COVID-19 does TestDirectly support?

While TestDirectly was initially developed to address the COVID-19 pandemic, it has since evolved into a versatile platform supporting a wide range of direct-to-consumer lab testing scenarios, including sexually transmitted infections, genetic testing, allergy testing, toxicology, respiratory panels, pooled and surveillance testing, at-home test kit distribution and registration, employer and organizational testing programs, university and school district programs, and travel health verification through the SMART Health Card Framework.