DHEC: Vendor testing backlog cleared, back to standard turnaround time

COLUMBIA, SC WOLO)– The South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control says Premier Medical Laboratory Services and other testing vendors have cleared data backlogs and will now be able to return COVID-19 testing data in the standard 48-hour time period.

Premier Chief Executive Officer Kevin Murdock says Premier invested millions of dollars in new equipment and staff to address the backlog.

“Premier Medical Laboratory Services is now back to pre-surge turnaround times,” Murdock said. “We are processing 95 percent of our results in under 24 hours.”

“Each test that we receive is important to us because we know that it affects someone’s quality of life. That’s why our team worked tirelessly to hire and train hundreds of South Carolinians and expand our infrastructure so that we could return to our normal turnaround times of results. We hold ourselves to the highest standards as a laboratory and look forward to serving South Carolina’s diagnostic testing needs.”

Officials with DHEC are pleased with the effort of its partners to address this issue and prevent it from happening again.

“We appreciate the patience of all South Carolinians and the hard work of our lab partners to respond to the challenges presented by the surge in testing demand,” DHEC COVID-19 Coordination Office Director Louis Eubank said. “We thank all of our vendors for working diligently to provide timely test results and are optimistic that the adjustments made by all parties will ensure no such backlog occurs again.”

You can find the latest coronavirus data in South Carolina at scdhec.gov/covid19/covid-19-data.