The Corona pandemic has the whole world firmly in its grip. A key strategy to contain the virus is increased testing – but this still poses numerous challenges.

tessa has successfully met these challenges: With the innovative Testing Solution Application tessa, the testing capacities in Austria could be massively expanded – thanks to the digital solution, mobile laboratories were developed with a capacity of 4,000 possible tests per day. Since October 2020, 300,000 tests have been carried out and a significant contribution to a healthy, safe society has been made.

Testing, testing, testing: a clear goal to cope with COVID-19. However, testing is not as easy as it sounds: long waiting times for test results, too little capacity, complex transmission of results, adequate data protection, location-bound test evaluation in the laboratory, and the often difficult traceability of manual data entries make the testing strategy considerably more difficult. Challenges that tessa was able to successfully solve with a new idea and a digital concept.

A mobile high-tech laboratory that operates completely digital and automated

In order to be able to test as flexibly as possible, mobile high-tech laboratories were developed. These mobile high-tech laboratories can take tests anywhere and at any time – and evaluate them. With the Testing Solution Application tessa on board as a software partner. For good reason – or rather good reasons: First and foremost, tessa is really fast and yet very easy to use. The results are already available on the day of testing. The recording of test results and the transmission of findings are automated and digitalised, and access to all information is possible at any time and from anywhere. Of course, the system is highly secure, as the data is highly sensitive: tessa enables digitalised online accreditation with the highest level of encryption in accordance with the German Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the German Health Telematics Act and Ordinance. The software was seamlessly integrated into the existing laboratory systems to optimise processes and increase efficiency.

About 300,000 tests since October 2020, further applications in planning

In October 2020 tessa set off. Since then, 300,000 tests have been carried out at four fixed and further variable test locations. Due to the high efficiency of the concept, not only the province of Tyrol but also, for example, the ÖSV (Austrian Ski Association) could be won as a partner, and participation in the “Sichere Gastfreundschaft” initiative of the Federal Ministry could be realised. The first cases of the British and South African virus mutations were also detected early on by tessa during testing.