St. Charles announced Tuesday it has opened three federally designated Test to Treat (T2T) sites in Central Oregon for “high risk” COVID-19 patients. It means those patients can go to the clinics and receive medication immediately, if needed.
The sites are located at the organization’s urgent care clinics in Bend, Prineville and La Pine.
The hospital defines “high risk” as the elderly, those with underlying conditions and people without health insurance.
“We try to remove as many barriers as possible for patients when they’re sick,” said Dr. Cynthia Maree of St. Charles.
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While the hospital has been prescribing COVID treatments for patients for more than a year, it has not been able to administer them on site. The urgent care clinics offer both a prescription and an immediate release of the medication to the infected individual.
The medical professionals will assess the patient and determine which of the two treatments to administer.
The first is a five-day oral medication. The second is a 30-second infusion — an injection — of antibodies.
Walgreens was the only federally approved pharmacy chain to have T2T locations in Oregon until recently.
