CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--CIC Health and Quest Diagnostics (NYSE:DGX) today announced a collaboration that will help more schools safely return to in-person learning by greatly increasing COVID-19 testing logistics and lab capacity across the country. It comes at a pivotal moment as the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) releases state funding to expand testing for K-8 public schools nationwide. The collaboration will also support the testing needs of camps and other summer programs.
CIC Health, one of the largest school-based testing services providers in the U.S., already facilitates COVID-19 pooled testing — a proven, low-cost way to test large populations — for over 80 school districts and more than 600 schools across 20 states. The company helps implement testing from soup to nuts with a model designed to minimize school-day disruption by enabling all sample collection in a matter of minutes. Results are generally returned the next day.
“Through strategic collaboration, we can make testing easy, fast, and affordable so school systems across the country can open and operate safely,” said Tim Rowe, CEO and co-founder of CIC Health. “In Massachusetts, we’ve seen firsthand the effectiveness of state-sponsored school testing. We’re excited to bring this same confidence in a safe return to in-person learning to thousands more schools as we expand our reach alongside Quest.”
As the nation's leader in diagnostic information services, Quest Diagnostics has capacity to perform 300,000 COVID-19 PCR tests a day through its network of approximately two dozen laboratories, which covers every U.S. state and Washington, D.C. as well as Puerto Rico and other U.S. territories. The vast majority of results are delivered in a day. Quest COVID-19 testing will complement and extend CIC Health’s lab network to dramatically expand its capacity, allowing the company to serve schools and camps across the country.
“All of us are eager to get back to school and camp as safely as possible, and COVID-19 testing is key,” said James E. Davis, Executive Vice President of General Diagnostics for Quest. “Quest is at the forefront of COVID-19 testing, providing nearly 40 million molecular diagnostic tests since March 2020, and our collaboration with CIC Health is informed by this experience. We know that Quest can make a major contribution to safer schools and camps, empowering these organizations with lab insights to help them foster safer environments.”
The CIC Health and Quest Diagnostics collaboration is effective immediately, with teams ready to support any interested schools, camps, and summer programs.
The school testing programs will follow recommendations in The Rockefeller Foundation’s K–12 National Testing Action Program (NTAP), a critical roadmap that operationalizes the funds from the Biden administration’s recent $10 billion allocation from the American Rescue Plan toward routine school testing to safely reopen America’s schools. In addition, CIC Health has been selected as a finalist for managing coordination hubs nationwide for the HHS federal school testing program, and Quest Diagnostics would serve as a partner lab in that endeavor.
About CIC Health
CIC Health offers comprehensive COVID-19 testing and vaccination services that are accessible, fast, and easy. The health tech company operates dozens of public testing sites, provides testing services — including pooled testing — to more than 600 schools and 375 organizations, and runs three mass vaccination sites: Gillette Stadium, Hynes Convention Center, and Reggie Lewis Center. Headquartered in Cambridge, Mass., the company facilitated more than 1.6 million PCR tests in its first eight months and over 925,000 vaccine doses in less than four months.
CIC Health collaborates with private and public entities like CLIA-certified labs, physician networks, health care institutions, and state and municipal governments to streamline and expedite operations to meet public health challenges. It is a 2021 Fast Company World Changing Ideas and 2020 Massachusetts Tech Top 50 honoree, and a subsidiary of Cambridge Innovation Center (CIC). Learn more at cic-health.com.
About Quest Diagnostics
Quest Diagnostics empowers people to take action to improve health outcomes. Derived from the world's largest database of clinical lab results, our diagnostic insights reveal new avenues to identify and treat disease, inspire healthy behaviors, and improve health care management. Quest annually serves one in three adult Americans and half the physicians and hospitals in the United States, and our 50,000 employees understand that, in the right hands and with the right context, our diagnostic insights can inspire actions that transform lives. QuestDiagnostics.com.
For more information about the latest developments with Quest’s COVID-19 testing, visit: newsroom.questdiagnostics.com/COVIDTestingUpdates.
