The Importance of Advance Infectious Disease Diagnostics in Modern Day Healthcare

Integrity Laboratories has been at the forefront of the COVID-19 pandemic since April of 2020; helping the Knox County community, and surrounding areas with reliable, accurate, and fast RT-PCR testing. With a passion for helping those in need, Integrity received their EUA approval from the FDA, and began testing immediately. Specimens routinely originate from hospitals, long term care facilities, assisted living facilities, and, those that are traveling again. Please note: most airlines will only accept a RT-PCR COVID-19 assay (which is performed at Integrity Laboratories). 

Throughout the pandemic SARS-CoV-2 variants have become increasingly more important. Whether they are more contagious or deadly, Integrity’s quality and standards of testing have not been impacted. The UK, South African, and the more recent Delta variant all occur within the SARS-CoV-2 gene’s S region or the spike protein. Integrity’s RT-PCR test encompasses the N region of the SARS-CoV-2 gene, which has remained a reliable region to test for the COVID-19 disease. 

During the pandemic, Integrity Laboratories developed, and commercially launched a new technology called AmpliteCt that is used in a multitude of testing platforms. AmpliteCT assigns a viral load score to each individual specimen, instead of reporting it as positive or negative. Under the AmpliteCt umbrella lies two important technologies: the VLI (Viral Load Indicator) and the PLI (Pathogen Load Indicator). The VLI has been a valuable tool for practitioners to aid and guide them in their treatment and care of COVID-19 patients. The PLI technology is also applied to our infectious disease testing platform including Women’s Health, Urinary Tract, Respiratory, Wound, Biofilm, STD, and HPV. 

With the rise of antibiotic resistance, it has become critical that proper antimicrobial therapy is prescribed. Antimicrobial stewardship among the healthcare field is rapidly growing, and it is a way of minimizing the unintended consequences of antibiotic overutilization. This widespread resistance has become a major focus for clinicians, hospital systems, insurance companies, CMS, and most recently Congress. Integrity Laboratories has been at the forefront of this mission, alongside our clinical partners through researching and developing Antibiotic Resistance tools that rapidly identify, and guide clinicians in their choice of antimicrobial therapies.