Nursing homes can cut hospitalizations, emergency room visits, and length of stay at hospitals with rapid on-site testing for influenza, leading to earlier detection of outbreaks and faster treatment, a new study shows.

Conducting rapid on-site flu testing and treatment cut emergency room visits by 22%, hospitalizations by 21%, and hospital length-of-stay by 36%, a recent study shows.

The cost of the rapid tests was around $12 each, and this investment proved beneficial, considering that the average daily hospital stay in the U.S. costs $2,883, according to researchers.

The study conducted by researchers from the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health revealed the significant benefits of rapid on-site testing for flu in nursing homes. By expanding the criteria for flu testing and enabling faster testing, the study aimed to improve health outcomes for residents.

Dr. Jonathan Temte, the lead author of the study and a professor of family medicine and community health at the UW School of Medicine and Public Health, emphasized the importance of early detection in protecting the vulnerable individuals living in nursing homes.

“This study demonstrates the profound effect of early detection of influenza in long-term care facilities,’’ he said in a press release. “Nursing homes are collections of very vulnerable individuals, so anything we can do to protect them is very important.”

In the experimental group of nursing homes, the nursing staff performed rapid tests on residents displaying at least two minor flu symptoms such as runny nose, congestion, sore throat, cough, or fever. The results of the on-site tests were available within 12 hours and often in as little as 15 minutes, while the control group followed standard infection control protocols, sending samples to external labs for testing.

The study demonstrated that lowering the threshold for testing and obtaining faster test results led to a higher use of the antiviral medication oseltamivir, more commonly known as Tamiflu, for influenza prevention.

The researchers were pleased to find that nursing homes using rapid testing became proficient in identifying and halting influenza outbreaks, resulting in a reduction of flu cases from 22% in the first year to 3% in the last year of the study.

The study followed residents of 20 Wisconsin long-term care facilities over three flu seasons from 2016 to 2019 and was a small randomized controlled trial. Ten nursing homes continued with their standard flu protocols, testing patients based on the usual definition of influenza symptoms and sending samples to a lab for analysis, which could take several days. Meanwhile, the other ten nursing homes used a broader definition of flu symptoms, even including minor ones like a new runny nose, without requiring a fever, acknowledging that older patients might not exhibit typical flu symptoms.

The rapid results facilitated the swift containment of flu outbreaks, as managing influenza is time-sensitive due to its rapid spread. By receiving test results within 15 minutes, the nursing homes gained a crucial advantage of three to four days in identifying and addressing new cases, considering that new generations of influenza cases can emerge every two or three days.