AdvaMed Statement on Administration’s COVID-19 Testing Policy for Employers

November 10, 2021

The Advanced Medical Technology Association (AdvaMed) released the following statement from AdvaMedDx Executive Director Susan Van Meter on the testing policy regulation recently proposed by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) for employers with 100 or more employees under the Administration’s vaccine mandate:

“COVID testing has been a critical component of our response to the ongoing pandemic, with the diagnostics industry mobilizing in a historic way to produce a wide range of laboratory-based and point-of-care and over-the-counter COVID tests. It is important that any policies related to our pandemic response leverage all COVID tests across these modalities to maximize the reach of testing. We are pleased that OSHA’s testing policy would allow needed flexibility in use of laboratory-based testing, point-of-care, and observed or digitally verifiable over-the-counter testing.

“The diagnostics industry is well-positioned to meet this increased demand: The supply of laboratory-based testing is strong, and point-of-care testing supply is strengthening, as is over-the-counter test availability, given recent federal investments. We are committed to working with the Administration to continually assess any changes to demand that may occur.”

AdvaMedDx, a division of AdvaMed, represents more than 70 manufacturers of innovative in vitrodiagnostic (IVD) tests in the U.S. and abroad. Dx members have driven the growth of overall molecular testing by 179% since the year prior to the pandemic, while facilitating the doubling of molecular laboratory instrumentation used to analyze tests in public health, hospital, and reference laboratories in the U.S. since early 2020. Further, since the beginning of the pandemic, the diagnostics industry has manufactured and shipped more than 625 million molecular COVID-19 tests to hospitals, laboratories, and other sites in the U.S., based on data in the AdvaMed COVID-19 Testing Supply Registry.

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AdvaMed member companies produce the medical devices, diagnostic products and health information systems that are transforming health care through earlier disease detection, less invasive procedures and more effective treatments. AdvaMed members range from the largest to the smallest medical technology innovators and companies. For more information, visit www.advamed.org.