Five things to know:
1. Scientists reviewed the raw data from the Thermo Fisher platform, which received an emergency authorization from the FDA, and found there were 26 false-positives on tests between June 27 and July 16.
2. The scientists then re-tested those 26 samples with another platform and received negative results. UK HealthCare uses four testing platforms and found a software flaw in just one of the platforms.
3. There weren’t any false-negative results.
4. UK HealthCare notified Thermo Fisher Scientific, the FDA and affected individuals of the false-positive tests.
5. The health system’s laboratory has performed more than 30,000 COVID-19 tests since March and reported a small percentage of tests were affected by the software defect.
More articles on health IT:
The Amazon Web Services-Cerner collaboration 1 year in: What they’ve accomplished and where they’re headed
Small labs’ reporting method skews Florida COVID-19 positivity rate
10 things to know about Palantir and TeleTracking, which power the HHS COVID-19 data system
