LOUISVILLE, Ky. — The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted emergency use authorization for Kroger Health's COVID-19 Test Home Collection Kit.
The tests will be self-administered under the guidance of a health care professional via telehealth to ensure the sample is collected properly. Once the sample is sent to the laboratory, processing will take around 24-48 hours.
Starting this week, Kroger Health's kits will be available for frontline associates across Kroger's companies based on medical necessity. The test will be free to those who are eligible.
According to the company, they plan to "rapidly expand the availability of the home collection kits to other companies and organizations in the coming weeks."
“Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, the safety of our associates and our customers has remained our top priority,” said Colleen Lindholz, president of Kroger Health, in a press release. “Over the past few months, Kroger Health has been providing Americans with access to COVID-19 testing through community test sites across the country; however, we’ve observed some individuals do not have access to transportation or live near these community testing locations. To help ease this burden and provide greater accessibility, we will be offering a home testing solution to our associates first followed by other companies and organizations.”
By the end of July, Kroger Health said their goal is to process up to 60,000 tests per week in partnership with Gravity Diagnostics in Covington, Ky.
Kroger Health also provided details on on how the home collection process will work:
- The home collection is performed under the supervision of a licensed healthcare professional. The process is simple and is available at no cost to eligible patients who meet established clinical criteria for likely COVID-19 infection or exposure.
- Patients will be provided access to a website where they will answer screening questions, input their organization’s benefit code and an individual code, like an employee ID, and complete a clinical assessment. If a patient qualifies, a healthcare professional will issue a prescription and the home collection kit is shipped to their home within 24-48 hours.
- The home collection kit includes a nasal swab, transport vial, instruction sheet, prepaid shipping label, and packing materials for return shipment of the sample to the laboratory.
- Upon receipt of the home collection kit, a healthcare professional guides the home collection process via telehealth – a two-way video chat. The direct observation helps to ensure the proper technique is used for sample collection.
- The patient will then overnight ship their sample to the laboratory for processing, which on average will take 24-48 hours.
- At the laboratory, the collection undergoes a molecular diagnostic test – a test which detects parts of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and can be used to diagnose active infection with the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
- If test results are negative for an active infection, results are released to the patient’s electronic medical record portal. Alternatively, patients may be called if they do not consent to use of the portal. For a patient whose test result is positive, a healthcare professional will contact them via phone to provide a recommended course of care.
- Test results will only be accessible to the patient and only shared with their organization if the patient authorizes the release of his or her results. All results are reported to government health agencies as required by law.
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