There is a lot that goes on behind the scenes in the Laboratory -- just ask Courtney Morris, a microbiology technical specialist. Courtney assumed a supervisor role at the start of the pandemic and faced many challenges head-on: from supply shortages to ongoing COVID testing needs and continuous updates from the Indiana State Department of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Since joining CRH in 2017, Courtney has worked in the microbiology lab. Early on, she enjoyed the investigative side of microbiology, which requires “a lot of critical thinking looking at the agar plate,” she said. An agar plate is a Petri dish that contains a growth medium solidified with agar used to culture microorganisms. “To most people when they look at it, it looks like a bunch of colorful dots. You pick apart what you think is necessary and break it down by characteristics to determine if it’s pathogenic.” The team takes various clinical specimens (e.g. blood or urine) and analyzes them to provide a clinical result for a physician to aid in the treatment of the patient. “We troubleshoot,” Courtney said. “I do think our department is very important in getting a good picture of what’s going on.”

Early in the pandemic, Courtney facilitated meetings with physicians and staff and sent frequent e-mails to keep them updated on the latest COVID information, including supply shortages. Because many manufacturers the Lab purchases supplies from shifted their focus to manufacturing COVID supplies, other supplies they would normally receive were suddenly unavailable. Courtney reached out to vendors to find alternative products and worked with teams at other area hospitals to borrow supplies. “I would facilitate driving back and forth to pick up some of the supplies,” she said. She and the microbiology supervisors at other hospitals established good relationships and have worked as a community to get through the pandemic.

Courtney has also been involved with validating three COVID testing platforms. Her work in the validation process has included gathering information and writing papers to demonstrate that the test works appropriately based on the work done in the Lab. Currently, our two in-house rapid tests are for patients identified as needing a quick result. For pre-surgical and non-critical patients, their COVID tests are sent to an outside reference lab. The turnaround time for those is a few days. The Lab sends up to 120 tests to the reference lab daily. Our third in-house COVID testing platform is near completion. Once it is ready, the Lab will be able to run large batches of COVID testing in the hospital and will no longer need to send tests to the reference lab. The process for validating the third platform has taken many months – the Lab had to be remodeled in order to build a clean room and testing instruments and other supplies had to be ordered, in addition to the testing and paperwork that had to be completed.

As a supervisor, Courtney enjoys working with her team and feels they know she “has their backs.” Understanding why things are done a certain way and identifying when improvements can be made are important to her. “I’m a pretty big advocate for patient care and making sure we’re putting out the best result we can,” Courtney said. “I’m really passionate about this community, and I think that’s what made me work hard about COVID. I wanted to work hard to make sure the community was safe and they got the best possible outcome that we could have with COVID. The Columbus community really just drives me to do better with my job here,” said Courtney.

We’re glad you’re part of the CRH community, Courtney, and thank you for all your hard work!