ADRIENNE LEFEVRE: Welcome, welcome, folks. We are so happy to have you here today, right on time no less. So we have a little icebreaker here on the screen, so please do feel free in the chat to share your name and your location of your organization. We're excited to learn more about you, and we'll give folks a little bit more time to join. Thanks so much.  

Kalamazoo, Michigan. Go blue, but also [? K ?] College. Also awesome. SalivaDirect, that's a great name. Welcome, welcome, everyone. We're so happy to have you. Welcome, Tanya, welcome, Susan. We'll give folks one more minute to filter in.  

Very exciting to see such a spread across the United States. We're thrilled to have you all.  

All right. It is 12:02 Eastern time, so we'll go ahead and get started. My name is Adrienne Lefevre, and I'm a consultant with Tanaq Management Services, supporting the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC's OneLab TEST Initiative.  

A couple of notes about the webinar before we get started. If you're having any technical issues throughout, please feel free to email the OneLab TEST inbox for support at OneLabTest@CDC.gov. That's OneLab T-E-S-T @CDC.gov.  

If you have questions throughout the session, please do use the Q&A function, and you will see that on the Q&A icon toward the bottom of your screen. We'll do a Q&A session at the very end of this presentation, and we'll review questions and do our best to answer them live. And if not, we'll try to get back to you.  

Note that we've posted the link or will post going to live captions in the chat. If you are using those closed captionings, it's very important to have both the caption window open and the Zoom meeting open to be able to successfully use it. And Kevin O'Donovan just posted that information in the chat, should you be interested in captions. Betsy, can you go to the next slide, please?  

So to give an overview of what we hope to cover today, we'll start with opening remarks from Dr. Ren Salerno, the Director of the Division of Laboratory Systems or DLS. And then we'll hear from Dr. Kelly Winter, the chief of the DLS Training and Workforce Development Branch that sits within CDC's Office of Laboratory Science and Safety. And she'll share with us about the newest element of OneLab and why we're all here at OneLab TEST.  

And then very excitingly, we'll hear insights from testers themselves, on the ground experiences. And finally, we'll wrap up with a Q&A session and sort through those questions that you all had been submitting throughout using the Q&A function.  

Now I'd like to introduce Dr. Salerno-- if you can go to the next slide, please, Betsy. He is the Director of the Division of Laboratory Systems at the CDC. His division improves public health, patient outcomes, and health equity by advancing clinical and public health laboratory quality and safety, data and biorepository science, and workforce competency.  

He is the lead CDC official for the Federal Tri-Agency Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments Program, better known as CLIA, and the designated federal official of the US Clinical Laboratory Improvement Advisory Committee or CLIAC. Dr. Salerno, I will hand it off to you. Thank you for your time.  

KELLY WINTER: So I'm going to call an audible, as we are famous for around here. So Ren will be with us momentarily. So while we're waiting, I'll just say hello. My name is Kelly Winter. I'm the chief of the Training and Workforce Development Branch. And we would love it if you haven't already put your name and organization in the chat, we would love to hear from some more folks as far as where you're joining us from today.  

And if you'll just bear with us one moment, then Ren will be with us. He was so excited to be part of this that he dipped out of another engagement, so he'll be with us in just a moment. Thank you.  

ADRIENNE LEFEVRE: Thank you, Kelly. American Samoa, wow. Michigan. So we have quite a spread here. I'd also be curious if you all are interested in sharing how long you may have been at your organizations.  

KELLY WINTER: But actually I believe Ren is with us now.  

ADRIENNE LEFEVRE: Oh, wonderful. So sorry about that. Please, Ren, welcome.  

KELLY WINTER: He might be having a little bit of an audio issue, but I think he'll be with us in one second.  

REN SALERNO: Can you hear me now?  

KELLY WINTER: Yep, I can.  

REN SALERNO: Right, sorry about that. I'm juggling a few different commitments at the same time. So I would like to thank all of you for being here today and for being a part of OneLab TEST, which is the newest element of our OneLab Initiative. It's really exciting to see you all here on this kickoff. It's an incredibly important event for us.  

As we all know, clinical diagnostic testing has evolved dramatically over the past three years in particular. Not only did diagnostic testing become common in places like nursing homes, schools, pharmacies, prisons, shelters, and parking lots, but the clinical laboratory and testing community at large invested deeply in the public health mission, and we're tremendously grateful for that.  

In the past, there had been a gap, both perceived and in some cases real, between diagnostic testing in health care and for patient care and diagnostic testing for public health. Now, the pressing question is how best to formally integrate the private clinical laboratory testing community into preparedness planning for future public health emergencies.  

We need a more integrated and coordinated laboratory and testing system, one that connects diagnostic testing facilities and stakeholders like all of you in a more collaborative manner. We need testers like you in the laboratory and testing community to help drive the necessary large scale changes needed to improve responses in future public health emergencies, and we firmly believe that better preparedness and response for public health emergencies would directly result in better patient care on a daily basis, even during times when there is no emergency.  

This is why CDC developed OneLab TEST, with the goal of developing a community of practice to connect testers in nonlaboratory settings to CDC and to each other to provide training resources tailored to testers' needs and to empower them to train each other. We want you to be equipped with the training tools and resources you need for your day-to-day work and to help you prepare to scale up during public health emergencies.  

During today's kickoff, you will learn more about OneLab TEST from my colleagues. You are a vital part of our expanded public health workforce, and I know this work is not easy and often goes unrecognized.  

I want to personally thank you all again for joining this new and exciting collaborative network, and I invite your continual feedback on how we can make this collaboration network-- collaborative network even more useful and helpful to you in the future. And now I'd like to turn it over to my colleague, Dr. Kelly Winter, for the continuation of this kickoff. Thank you.  

KELLY WINTER: Thank you so much, Ren. So hello, everyone. I already introduced myself once, but we'll do it again. I will say hi. I'm Kelly Winter, and thank you so much for joining me today. If I could have the next slide, please.  

All right, and we can keep going. Don't worry about that part. I want to make sure that more than anything that we emphasize today that this entire effort is about you all. So it's certainly not about us, so you will notice that we do our best to glide past titles and all those things because we want this to be about you guys.  

And so I'll start by giving a little bit of context about OneLab in general because I think I'm sure by now you're like, everything says OneLab. What is this about? And so I'll give you a little bit of an overview of the entire initiative, and then we'll dive directly into OneLab TEST.  

So starting from bottom left, the first element of OneLab are our assessments. So we continually assess our audience needs and use the information that we gather from that to drive everything else that we do as part of OneLab.  

And so I should start actually by explaining that OneLab is an initiative to bridge, train, and sustain a capacity building community among laboratory professionals and the broader testing community. So we started out focusing specifically on bringing together public health laboratories, clinical laboratories, commercial laboratories, and those who work in those environments to make sure that we had better collaboration and communication so that we could be better prepared for new public health emergencies and to work better together day to day, but we've since expanded that to also include the testing community, so that includes anyone who conducts testing in a nonlaboratory setting.  

So going around the elements of OneLab, we have our needs assessments that we use to gather information on which topics we select for all the other elements. Then we have our OneLab Summit. This is a three-day annual virtual conference that we hold.  

The first OneLab Summit was last April, and the next one will be this coming October. The first one was definitely focused specifically on laboratory professionals, and this one will largely be as well, but we do invite anyone who's part of that broader testing community to attend. Just know some of the sessions this year might not be of interest to you since they might be a little bit on the scientific, technical side that you might not be interested in. But over the years, we will be looking to tailor that potentially to have a day of it that focuses on testers specifically, so more on that to come in future.  

So the OneLab Network is now 4,000 members strong, and these are laboratory professionals from over 2,000 US labs. So they meet monthly for training webinars live on Zoom and also receive updates through a listserv and also are invited to the OneLab Summit.  

So then moving on to OneLab REACH, that is our learning management system. So all of you got to see REACH when you went to sign up to be part of TEST. So we built this Rapid Education And Capacity Hub, or REACH for short, to make sure that there is a one stop shop for quickly finding all of the free training materials that we offer for the testing community and laboratory professionals. And so hopefully you're finding that helpful, and we want to hear from you as we go on what we can do to improve that platform.  

And then I won't stay on OneLab TEST here because the entire rest of the webinar is about that. So quickly, OneLab VR is our virtual reality training. Right now, it is specifically tailored to laboratory professionals, but we do have plans in future years, as time permits, to then add on potentially a virtual reality section specifically for point of care testing.  

And so OneLab VR is a 50,000 square foot virtual lab, if you can wrap your mind around 50,000 virtual square feet. And we offer trainings, we offer on-demand trainings in virtual reality, and we're currently preparing to open up what would be a live training in virtual reality where laboratory professionals can then train each other in real time in a VR environment. But since we did have that 50,000 square foot environment, as we were planning it out, we did create a point of care aspect to it so that someday we can build that part out as well.  

And then finally, OneLab Resources. So this is just to denote that we do create online, on-demand training resources. So this would be things like job aids-- so your checklists, your infographics, your printable materials, to your videos, to also on-demand e-learning courses that you can take when you want to dive a little bit deeper into the materials. So those are all of the seven components of OneLab, and then the rest of this entire webinar will be devoted to TEST specifically. So next slide, please.  

All right so TEST stands for Timely Education and Support of Testers, and that's exactly what we want to do. We want to make sure that we connect you all to each other and really build a community where you can exchange lessons learned and that we provide training to you that is free about your work daily or your volunteer work as well, for those of you who are volunteer testers. And that finally, we bring you all together to learn from each other and build a lasting community of practice. And so with that, I will say next slide, please.  

All right, so we launched this OneLab TEST a little over a month ago. So we launched on May 1, and here we are in June 13, and we have almost 1,000 members already. But it's really important that you all help us spread the word because this really is about making sure we have the right people who are part of OneLab Test. And when I say right people, what I mean is we want to focus on those who conduct testing outside of laboratory settings.  

Laboratory professionals are welcome to join and hear what's going on, but as far as who we want participating in these live meetings, who we're developing trainings for, et cetera, those are the people who are conducting testing in nonlaboratory settings. So people who work in pharmacies, clinics, those who work in nursing homes doing point of care testing. Those who are at schools, drive-thru sites, et cetera, correctional facilities, that's who we're looking for. It's people who do that really important testing outside of the laboratory.  

And so if you're a part of that community and you know others who are, please make sure that they're aware that this is available. Some of you may have heard me say this is a paradox in that you guys have been doing what you do that's important work, but this is not something that has actually been given a name as far as the human beings who do the work.  

And so we're calling you testers for lack of a more clear, succinct word to describe all of those professionals out there and all those volunteers out there in the US who are doing this important work, and so we hope that resonates with you all and we wanted to really make sure that you know this is your community. So see if we can get to 1,000 and beyond that by next month and make sure that we're looking for people who do testing specifically. So next slide, please.  

All right, so I wanted to quickly go over the four phases of OneLab TEST, so we are at the beginning of phase two. So phase one was making sure that we collected all the resources that we had already created for people who conduct testing in nonlaboratory settings and put them all in one easy to find place. And so that's OneLab TEST home page. So that's reach.cdc.gov/onelabtest.  

That home page has all of the resources on it that are already available that are specifically geared to the needs of people who do testing in nonlaboratory settings. And we will be adding a couple more resources that we realized did not make it onto that page the first time, so I invite you to check it out, and we'll focus a little bit on one of the trainings in a moment here.  

But as we transition to phase two, it's going to be about these live OneLab TEST meetings, and this is going to be a place for you all to share your experiences. We're actually going to hear from two testers today to get that started.  

But this is going to be a wonderful venue for you to share your experiences with each other. Mention materials that you may have already created. One of the things that we're really interested in is finding out what training materials you've already made that we can repurpose, and we'll talk a little bit about that more in phase four.  

But these webinars are a great time to get that started. We'll also use feedback from you guys to make sure we choose topics that are most of interest to you as far as training to have during those live webinars, and this would also be a chance for you to network with each other.  

And then phase three will be new trainings that we develop. And finally, phase four will be empowering you to train each other. So next slide, please.  

All right, so I want to call attention to one training that we already have available that you may find helpful, but first I want to talk a little bit about the page where you find it. And so these existing training resources live on reach.cdc.gov/onelabtest. For those of you who don't prefer to type any more characters and you need to, you don't actually need that HTTPS and all that good stuff. If you just type in reach.cdc.gov/onelabtest, you can get there. Or if all you remember is reach.cdc.gov, you can find OneLab TEST on the top nav.  

But this page is specifically for the OneLab TEST community that we're building and your one stop shop to find free resources that are relevant specifically to you. So next slide, please.  

All right, so our feature training right now is called Ready? Set? Test! And this is an e-learning course that was specifically designed for people who conduct waived testing. So if that applies to you, if you are in a health care facility, clinic, pharmacy, et cetera and are conducting waived testing, we invite you to take this e-learning course, and there are some supporting materials as well, job aids and such, that come with that course that we hope you'll find helpful. And there is continuing education credit available for those who need CE. Next slide, please.  

All right, so I just wanted to reiterate that OneLab TEST is specifically for those who do testing outside of the lab. So we have other resources available for those who do testing within the lab, but OneLab TEST is specifically for those who conduct testing outside the lab. And so a lot of the materials that we'll be producing are relevant to that entire community of what we call testers, but some materials will be specifically tailored to the needs of two subaudiences.  

So one of those subaudiences would be people who have a medical background or a health care background but don't have experience in labs. And the other subgroup would be people who have neither health care or medical background nor a laboratory background and as I like to say, are really doing this out of the goodness of their heart or are new to this field, and both things are very important. We just want to make sure that those who need a little bit more information on things like universal precautions and things like that have access to those resources as well. So next slide, please.  

All right, so I think we're going to stop and have a little bit of a chat here and ask people to please share what the best time of day for you to attend live trainings and webinars is. Because we want to make sure-- we chose noon as a starting point for this event, but there might be another time. And if you don't mind, I just realized it, put Eastern or Pacific if you can or Central just so we have a sense of what that means to you.  

So this won't be a perfect way to do it. And over time, we will eventually have a formal survey, but there is a little bit of red tape involved in that. So for now, we are just offering a chance for you to let us know what time of day is most helpful or what days. Any information you like to share to make sure that when we are scheduling these, they're as convenient as possible for you.  

And I will also point out that we will be saving the recordings from these and the slides and making a fully accessible version online that will be available within two weeks. Probably a lot faster than that, but we always say two weeks in case so that if you do miss the live event, you will still be able to download the slides and listen to the audio or read the transcript, whichever makes sense for you and whichever you prefer.  

But it's always great when you can join us here live because then we can have interactions. And so this is probably the most I will ever talk on one of these meetings or that anyone from CDC will talk, we hope, because as we go forward, we will look more and more for these meetings to be driven by those who do the testing that we are doing all this for.  

All right. It looks like we're getting some good feedback really appreciate you guys being willing to drop those thoughts in the chat. Next slide, please, and feel free to keep putting your thoughts in the chat.  

All right, so let's talk a little bit about webinars. And so as I've alluded to, we're going to aim for monthly webinars. At first, it might be more of every six weeks or so. It depends. It will be driven partially by what topic is most appropriate and who we can find to speak on that topic and also the frequency with which you all let us know that you're open to having these live webinars.  

But really want this to be a recurring time when you meet with each other, get a chance to share what's going on, and really give us an opportunity to hear directly from the field what's the most important thing right now. What is the thing that's needed most, et cetera. And so next slide, please.  

All right, so phase three, this is a sneak peek of some upcoming trainings that we're already working on. So we'll be releasing an e-learning course on bloodborne pathogens. We also have a course on the fundamentals of public health laboratories.  

For those who are just interested-- even if you don't work in a laboratory, let alone a public health laboratory, if you're interested in the basics of how they work, and it might help give you some context into how the work that you're doing supports the larger public health and medical community, we do invite you to take that training.  

We're also developing a Spanish version of our Ready? Set? Test! e-learning course to make sure that that's accessible to even more people. And we are also working on a training of trainers for point of care testing. For those of you who aren't familiar with training of trainers model, this is something we really believe in very much in our branch, which is we build capacity by training people to train others in the field.  

And so this one will be virtual. Those of you who have been around public health or social work before might know a training of trainer is something that you do live in-person, but we've modified it to be something that we can do over Zoom. And that would make it to where you all are more equipped to train each other, train new people who are coming onto your site more effectively.  

And we will, over time, of course, tailor that to feedback from you guys. So we'll do a pilot of it, and if you tell us, hey, that first session was not what we needed, we need to make it longer, shorter, et cetera, and know that will be an evolving approach and that we'll take an iterative approach to that. So next slide, please.  

All right. So in the chat, if you'd be willing to, we'd love to hear from you any training or webinar topics that you've already thought about that you'd love to see covered this year. So this could be anything from something like universal precautions, how to don and doff protective gear. Surprise us. We, again, we want to hear directly from you as to what would be most helpful.  

And it doesn't have to be specific to a certain type of testing, but it can be. So if there is a certain sort of testing that you have questions about, or it can be anything related to your role as a tester. And so be thinking about that, and feel free to put those thoughts in the chat even as we continue through the next slide. I know some people like a chance to think about it a little bit, but I'm already seeing some things come through.  

And I will point out, for [? Osama, ?] we have a biosafety cabinet e-learning, course and I'll look to someone from our team to drop the link to it in the chat. So we actually have an e-learning course on the biosafety cabinet, and we also have a virtual reality course on the biosafety cabinet. Those are more geared to people who do work in a lab, but they're all open to the general public and free. So if that's something that is of interest to you, know that those are already available.  

I also see someone mentioned PCR testing, so we have a course on that, again, geared more toward laboratory professionals. Ah, PCR, point of care waived testing, OK, PPE. I see a lot of different topics in here, so appreciate you all for sharing those. So we'll take a look through them, and at the next OneLab TEST meeting, we'll provide some feedback on the ones that we think might be most-- we might be able to roll out the quickest. All right, so next slide, please.  

So phase four of OneLab TEST will really be about empowering you to train each other. And so we know that you know best what you need, what works well wherever you're working at in your location with your colleagues or with the volunteers that you support. And so we really want to make sure that we provide those tools to you to make sure that you are empowered to train each other.  

So what does that mean? So it starts with that training of trainers that I mentioned, but we also plan to build out OneLab REACH to have a partition, for lack of a better word, that has a message board where you all can more actively interact with each other in real time whenever you want online and where you would be able to share materials. So that someone who is conducting HIV testing in Massachusetts can put up a job aid on the message board and say, hey, this is something we developed at my site in case anyone finds it helpful.  

And so that would do two things, obviously. Anyone who needs that at that moment who is active on the message board would see it and be able to use it, but we would also be monitoring that message board and looking for materials that we could potentially adapt. Say something was really site-specific, and we could make a genericized version that would be useful for the broader testing community. That would be our role, to be there and be in support of that.  

And so really look forward to you all being part of that and hearing from you more, what would be helpful beyond having that area where you could live message each other and share resources and having a training of training-- training of trainers course. Are there other materials or activities that would help you be ready to train each other, particularly in times when you might have a lot of people joining, or when it might have been a little while since people have conducted testing.  

So that's another thing we haven't focused on a whole lot today but want to make sure you're aware of, is that we want to make sure that we keep a cohort of people prepared to do testing. We've had a ton of people who were just heroes out in the field, and I'm sure many of you all are part of that community of people who were doing rapid testing for COVID. And so we've got a lot of people who are in the field experts. and so we want to make sure that those skills stay sharp and that we don't lose all those people who have that experience. So anything we can do to help keep you up to speed on the latest, that's what we're here for. So next slide, please.  

All right, and now I'm thrilled to start the part that we're really here for. So I want to turn the floor over to one of our testers. So Marla Rich is special populations manager of field operations at Oregon Health Authority. And so Marla is going to come on camera and share a little bit about her experiences as a tester.  

MARLA RICH: Hi. Thanks, everyone so much. So just a little clarification here for special populations. We identified our mission for that branch during COVID response was to serve underserved communities. So primarily our testing in the field was done for migrant and seasonal farm workers, houseless populations, adults in custody, youths in custody, and I think that was primarily who we serviced.  

So we developed on the fly, as most things were COVID response did, was our point of care field testing to support first migrant and seasonal farmworkers. So we had a mandate from our governor to offer point of care testing to all migrant and seasonal farmworkers that arrived to the state of Oregon within 24 hours of their arrival. So we made really great connections with our nursery and farm owners and managers so that we could schedule that.  

And then the other largest portion of our field testing was at shelters or other houseless service areas. Also, we worked with our local public health departments to identify camps or other gathering places that our houseless communities were that we could really test a large community of them at once.  

And sometimes that required us to do a previsit and really talk to people, get to know them, make sure that we were a recognizable face so that when we came back in two weeks and asked them to-- offered them the COVID test that we weren't just some people walking in one day and saying, hey, we're going to offer you a COVID test but really building that rapport and that trust with those communities so that we could then hopefully come back at regular intervals.  

And so a lot of learning was done on the fly. We primarily used the BinaxNOW test as our point of care testing for all of our field work, and we created a program within the field operations team that really did the train the trainer model. So three of us really did the initial training and then kind of built that program and would train new people as they came on.  

And we really partnered with our state public health lab to develop that training program, and then we performed all of the waived tests under a CLIA waiver that our viral respiratory doctor, viral and respiratory pathogens program doctor, she got the CLIA waiver for us to perform all of our testing under.  

And I will say that we learned a lot. I think that the last count was that we offered our vulnerable populations something close to 85,000 point of care tests, the last time that I checked in with our totals. And we really, the most important, I think, thing is that we really built those connections with our farm owners and workers, with our houseless communities and their supports so that when a shelter suspected an outbreak, they knew who to call, and we really built that network that didn't exist.  

Then the people in our community who are historically underserved, understanding the services that existed to them and who they could count on and who they could connect with to make sure that those services were given to them. And I don't know if I'm supposed to take questions now or not, so Kelly, I will pass it back to you.  

KELLY WINTER: Thanks, Marla. I think we'll hold questions for now, but we'd love to have people ask some questions of Marla in a moment here. I just wanted to acknowledge the things-- I mean, there were many things you said that I think are particularly relevant to what this community is about, but learning on the fly and being flexible is so important. And so it was delightful to hear you say that and just want to say we have so much respect for those who had to figure it out on the fly and figure out how to do it.  

And I also wanted to ask, because I love things that are on the fly, in the chat if anyone would like to share if you think it would be helpful to have a OneLab TEST meeting that would focus on how to build those connections like Marla mentioned. Any thoughts in the field on how to build connections, particularly on the fly or in rapid situations.  

And I also wanted to note that it was really valuable in particular that you were there to support the migrant farmers and that we want to focus on everything we do in our division laboratory system now has health equity baked into it. But in particular with OneLab TEST, we want to make sure that we get the word out to those who are doing testing in rural areas and in medically underserved areas. So if you all know of anyone who falls into either of those categories, please make sure they join OneLab TEST.  

If we can have the next slide, please. That was my shameless plug again to make sure we're getting more people into this network. And so now I'm going to turn it over to yet another tester. So if I could have Carrie Harrison come on please, who is a COVID tester and trainer and so we can hear your testimonial.  

CARRIE HARRISON:  Thank you. Thank you so much. Yes, my name is Carrie Harrison, and I had the honor to serve one of the biggest industries in Atlanta, and that's the movie industry. We tested anywhere from 300 to 500 people a day.  

I started out at Tyler Perry Studios. We started out with swabbing the throat, and then it went into both swabbing the nose, swabbing the throat. So we had to basically train the people who were swabbing and the people who were being swabbed because a lot of times, the people who were being swabbed were very nervous. They would back up, and we couldn't get what we wanted.  

So we would talk to them, calm them down. Say, breathe or just hold your breath. Sing a song in your head. Whatever it took for us to get what we needed gently because we didn't want to be-- and that's what I think they were afraid because of the first experiences that they had, so we wanted to be gentle with them and at the same time we got what we needed.  

I worked with the PCR, Binax, the antigen, luceras, rapids, you name it, we did it all. And then from Tyler Perry, I went on to work for over a year at The Black Panther when they were filming Black Panther, Wakanda Forever over at Taylor's Perry's, and I met so many stars.  

But it was great because I was really assigned to the cast, which was Angela Bassett. I was with her every day. It was such an honor and just making sure that everybody was tested. It was really about safety. And because of the large amount of people, we would have to be at work at 3:00, 4:00 in the morning, and we got up and did it and testing.  

And if it was rapid, making sure that they got back the results immediately because there were [INAUDIBLE] times at that time when a lot of people were coming up positive. And so we had to make sure that we confidentially got them out of the facility and had to keep it going.  

We had to do-- we had to really learn a lot of patience because when people were supposed to come and get tested, a lot of times, we had to go get them. We had to go look for them or had somebody look for them because everyone had to be tested. And if they came on the site and they were not tested, they could not-- they could not come to work.  

And so I think by them making that serious enough that they knew, we have to test you. You have to be tested, so it was really important. And it was a lot of work, but it was also a lot of fun. We kept it fun, but it was mainly making sure that we got what we needed to take to the lab. What the lab needed as far as the specimen and being prompt and getting it there and keeping people safe.  

Again, you had to have a lot of patience because you had to hunt people down or you had to go to people's house-- we had to go to the cast's house. Some of them didn't come to get tested, so we had to make sure we went and tested them. Everyone that was on that list had to be tested, and we made sure that it happened.  

And by using the QR codes, that made it a lot faster because at first, it was all paperwork. And then they started with the QR code, which was so much easier. Just scanning, testing, and letting them go, do what they needed to do to get the movie done.  

It was a very fast-paced environment, but, again, we had fun doing it and keeping people safe and keeping ourselves safe. So of course, that has all ended now. The movie industry is not COVID testing anymore, so I'm on a break, but I miss it. I really miss it.  

And I miss the people because I am a people person, but I really enjoyed doing what I was doing. And I hate to say that it's over, but it's a good thing that it is over because it is coming down, the positive testing towards the end was not coming up at all. That's it. That's what I did.  

KELLY WINTER: Oh, thank you so much for sharing that, Carrie. I'm going to ask attendees in chat to comment if you feel like it, what is surprising to you so far about what you've heard from our two testers? Were you aware of these different types of testing? Was there anything that you were just like, oh, I never thought about that. And so feel free to be putting that in chat, and I'll invite both of our testers to join me when we have Q&A in a minute. So next slide, please.  

All right, so we want to make sure that we reiterate that we are relying on you to help us spread the word. We certainly are doing social media and all that good stuff. But more than anything, you all can be the ones to help make sure that we get everybody that has been out there doing this really important work to join us and be part of OneLab TEST.  

And so the easiest way to do that is to go to reach.cdc.gov/onelabtest, but we will be sharing these materials as well on REACH so that you can download them and have some links to social media and whatnot to share as well. And we'll be sending out updates through our newsletters that we send out as well. So next slide, please.  

All right, so before we go to official Q&A, I just wanted to call a few of the chat comments or the more recent ones. So Catherine says, had no idea these populations were tested so consistently. I was so focused on the nursing home population.  

Well, I'll just say that makes sense. We all focus on what our day to day work is, right? I always have been able to think, oh, there are more people doing this important work but in different populations, different kinds of tests.  

And then Teresa says, absolutely during COVID we learned a lot and future situations will occur. Building those relationships across the state during a calm state is essential to be prepared. Wow. Thank you for that, Teresa. I mean, that's exactly what we want to do as part of OneLab TEST, and so we'll be looking for more thoughts on maybe a topic for a webinar around that.  

So let's flip over and do some Q&A. So Adrienne, if you'll join me and ask me some questions and ask some questions of our testers. I think let's have both of our testers come back and join us as well, please, so that Carrie and Marla, if you want to come on camera as well in case we have questions for you guys. So what you got for us, Adrienne?  

Might be having a little bit of an audio moment. I will answer a question that I saw--  

ADRIENNE LEFEVRE: Sorry, Kelly. Please go ahead.  

KELLY WINTER: Oh, no. I was going to say, I saw a question in the Q&A about needing to reset a password, so I will drop the link on how to do that into the chat. But what questions do you have, Adrienne, for us?  

ADRIENNE LEFEVRE: Thank you, Kelly, and thanks all for your grace. Somehow even post-pandemic, I managed to stay muted. So we have a question here-- I think, Kelly, it would be most appropriate for you-- who is responsible for the oversight to ensure testers are getting correct information and stay in compliance with CLIA?  

KELLY WINTER: OK, that's a very complex question, and I will invite you to also share that question via our email box. So if you send it to onelab@cdc.gov, so I'll answer the part of it I feel comfortable answering and then leave it for you all to get more information. So the Center for Medicaid and Medicare Services administers the CLIA amendments. And so CLIA, like the amendments themselves originate from CMS and a partnership with DLS as well.  

But as far as who's responsible for enforcing them, I will table that for a laboratory subject matter expert. Full transparency, I am a former epidemiologist, and I am an expert in training and communication and have a great love for labs, but labs are not my area of expertise as far as the science end of things. What other questions do you have, Adrienne?  

ADRIENNE LEFEVRE: Wonderful. Thank you. Here is, I think, a very important one. What is the cost associated with working with or having access to OneLab TEST?  

KELLY WINTER: Oh, that's a great question. Zero. $0. So this is all free. Everything that is developed by the federal government is free to all those who are members of the public. And so all of the materials we put up are free. It's free to share them, reuse them, and we will certainly do our best to also make customizable versions whenever we have job aids-- and I invite you to look at the job aids on the TEST page that we already have available.  

Whenever possible, we try to make two versions of our job aids. So these are our checklists, infographics, et cetera. And so we will do our best to make one version that is printable as is with the logos on and all that good stuff and then a version that's in Microsoft Word that can be adjusted or edited as needed if you need to add site-specific information.  

So obviously that works better for something like a checklist than for something that's more around an image. But if it is something that's a lot of text that can be edited, we try to do that to make it even more useful. But yeah, the short answer is everything is free. What else--  

ADRIENNE LEFEVRE: We love the answer being free. I've noticed we have some participants from not only across the US but also outside of the US. So we have an individual that is asking if this is available for folks outside of the US at this time.  

KELLY WINTER: Absolutely. I mean, anywhere you are in the world, we welcome you to download our materials, to use them, to be here with us on these webinars if you're in a time zone where that's convenient or to download the materials afterwards. So we tailor the material specifically to the needs of the people who are conducting this sort of testing in the US, but a lot of what is there will be universal regardless of where you are. So thank you for joining us wherever you are, everybody. Next question, please.  

ADRIENNE LEFEVRE: Yes, yes. And folks, thank you for continuing to add questions. We've had really wonderful ones coming up here at the end. What is required of folks to be a part of OneLab TEST. Kelly, can you share about that, please?  

KELLY WINTER: Sure and actually first, I am going to thank the lead for our OneLab network for giving me the proper answer to the question around CLIA, which I will drop in chat a little bit more succinct answers about the CLIA question from earlier. So Adrienne, if you don't mind repeat this question again for me.  

ADRIENNE LEFEVRE: Yes, of course. What is required of folks to join OneLab TEST or be an active member of OneLab TEST?  

KELLY WINTER: Ah, so it's quite simple, we hope. If you go to reach.cdc.gov/onelabtest or just go to reach.cdc.gov and find the TEST page, you can go there and join. So you'll have to create a REACH account, and that's it. It's free, and that will sign you up for notifications, and you can opt in and out as you need to, but the default would be that you'll get email and get more information. And then every month, you'll get to join meetings and participate, so that's all you need.  

And thank you, Kevin, for throwing that link in the chat so everyone has it handy. So all you do is click on that link, and you can go there and set up a REACH account for free, and then you can join OneLab TEST and the network if you want.  

But I will clarify because we have mentioned OneLab Network that the materials that we have in OneLab Network are really specifically for those who work in labs, so they won't be of particular interest to anybody who isn't working in the lab day to day. We're not going to bar anyone from joining, but just want to make that clear that just like with OneLab TEST be specific to testers, OneLab Network is specific to people who are in the labs. Are there other questions, Adrienne?  

ADRIENNE LEFEVRE: Yes, yes. So I think you've touched on this, but just as we're all getting up to speed on who OneLab TEST is for, there's a question here asking if a certain type of testing has to be offered at the entity in order to be a member.  

KELLY WINTER: Good question. No, we are not specific to any one sort of test. And as we hear more from those who are in this OneLab TEST community with us, what types of testing you're working on, we'll do our best to see if we can't create materials for specific tests if there are enough people who need information on a given test. But no, there is no specifics on what tests are applicable.  

It's really are you conducting testing and you're not in a lab when you're doing it. I think that hopefully is the easiest way to say it. But if someone comes up with better, put it in chat.  

ADRIENNE LEFEVRE: Yes, thank you so much. We have a question here from Tamika. Do OneLab-- or does OneLab supply the testing supplies to members?  

KELLY WINTER: So I think you mean like the actual supplies to conduct the tests? No, that's not within our purview. We create the trainings on how to do the test, but we don't have access to provide supplies unfortunately.  

ADRIENNE LEFEVRE: Great. And with that, Kelly, I think sort of adding these couple of questions I have left here together, it seems like in referencing that we want folks to be ready to jump in and be prepared during steady state so that when emergencies like COVID do happen, folks are ready to test.  

So can you explain a little more understanding it may evolve about how you anticipate people kind of being on that roster? Did they say, I'm a CLIA certificate holder and I can be here? How do you-- is it really just being a member and signing up through REACH, or is there any delineation between sort of being ready to be search support in their communities?  

KELLY WINTER: I'm really delighted that someone is thinking that far ahead, and I'm going to take some of what was said in that question as part of the suggestions on how this could work long-term, sincerely. I think we wanted to make sure we got this stood up as swiftly as we could and start working on training materials and had not thought deeply yet about beyond having this roster of sorts and that we had the names of those who are part of the network.  

And we would certainly raise any if, for instance, there is an outbreak that we see on the horizon that we see that there will likely be an increase in point of care testing. We would certainly have a TEST event about it. I want to be clear, we would not be the ones to choose who would answer the call, so to speak. But by having that listserv, we can make sure we get the word out, and we'll be sure to tailor our messaging if there is a need, for instance, for people who have expertise with CLIA waived tests or something like that.  

But I like this idea of potentially as we go having some more information on what people's expertise is. So we'll see where we go with that, but I like that idea, and thank you for that.  

ADRIENNE LEFEVRE: Yes, of course. And if you're OK, the questions keep coming, so we'll use a little bit more of our time here before we wrap up. Do you have to be a-- or excuse me, do you need a doctor's order for this type of testing? And I think that might be nonlaboratory testing. So do you need a prescription perhaps?  

KELLY WINTER: So not all tests-- some tests, doctors will certainly order for you right there on the spot, but this also includes things like COVID testing. We heard from Carrie who was doing it on movie sets as far as doing testing. So no, that is not a requirement for this.  

There's certainly testing that goes on that people might not be as aware of in drive-through sites, on movie sets, in schools, in nursing homes, et cetera. And so we're here to support all of that testing, along with the tests that happen in a traditional doctor's office where you get the results while you're standing there in the doctor's office.  

ADRIENNE LEFEVRE: Wonderful. Thank you, and we have time for one more question. And I know there's a few great loose ends, so please know that we will do our best to get these answers back out to you all after this concludes. But Kelly, it's possible that you answered this briefly if you want to punch half of it like we did earlier, no problem. How does the end of the COVID public health emergency affect testing kits that are not FDA-approved, CLIA waived but only have emergency use reauthorization? And that's also in the chat if you want to read that again.  

KELLY WINTER: So that's definitely beyond my scope to answer, so if we can get the person who asked the question to please give us their contact information. We will get an answer out to you, and we'll also make sure that we mention the answer when we have our next TEST event.  

ADRIENNE LEFEVRE: Perfect. And finally, maybe more of a suggestion, but something that I think is inspiring to wrap up the Q&A with, Kelly. We have here, is there a way to have a living list of retired laboratory professionals that could be on the front line of collecting samples in the next pandemic? They know all about the preanalytic errors that can occur if the sample is not collected or labeled correctly.  

So I know that's not quite a question, but maybe perhaps, Kelly, just more thinking for the future. But do you have any response at this time that you'd like to give?  

KELLY WINTER: I'll just say, thank you for that idea. I mean, that's exactly what we're looking for is novel ideas that we can make happen. I will say there would be a little bit of a challenge as far as how long it would take us to collect that information just because there's some paperwork that would be necessary if we were the ones to collect it. But we'll do some thinking about it whether it's something that one of our nonfederal partners could be the one to collect or if it's something where we could just get started on that paperwork now.  

But I hear you, and that idea conceptually is great to not lose all that expertise and to find ways to make sure we capture it. I also think, just because you mentioned that, that also having some recently retired laboratory professionals share their thoughts from the field, whether it's at a OneLab Network meeting if it's more around things that happen in the lab or if it's things around waived testing and such to have them share here at OneLab TEST potentially.  

But yeah, thank you so much for these kinds of ideas because this is exactly why we want you all to drive these conversations. Because as I said, you know best what you need and what you need most.  

ADRIENNE LEFEVRE: Yes, absolutely. Well with that, we will get back to folks. And some people submitted questions into Q&A as an anonymous attendee, so if you don't see your name, please do email onelabtest@cdc.gov with your question just to ensure that we can reach you if we're not able to see your name. So Betsy, if you can go to our last slide.  

I know we're at the hour. We are so grateful for your time today. And as mentioned, this email address, it's here for your feedback, your thoughts, your questions, and we really want to create an open door.  

You can pull out your phone and scan this QR code or visit the site that we have been dropping into the chat. So Kelly, is there anything else from you before we depart? And thank you again so much, Marla and Carrie, for your time and your contributions to our community. I really appreciate it.  

KELLY WINTER: I was going to say mainly thank you to Carrie and Marla and to all those who participated via chat and/or questions. But also for those who are interested, would love to have you share your testimonials at the next OneLab TEST meeting. So just be thinking if for sure that you want to come on camera and whatnot, reach out to us via onelab.cdc.gov or through REACH.  

But you can always spontaneously volunteer when we get to the next meeting. But just want to make sure that others are ready to share their stories and thank you all again. Have a lovely afternoon and thank you for all you do for public health and for the US.  

CARRIE HARRISON: Thank you.  

MARLA RICH: Thanks, everyone.