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Members of the Wisconsin National Guard process a test sample at Waukesha County's drive-thru COVID-19 testing site in the Expo Center parking lot on Saturday. Drive-thru tests will be conducted Monday and Tuesday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Individuals with symptoms of COVID-19 who live or work in the state of Wisconsin can phone (262) 548-7626 to set an appointment to be tested.(Photo: Scott Ash/Now News Group)

Advocate Aurora Health will stop testing some patients for COVID-19 before surgery and will close all but one of its community testing sites in Wisconsin.

The changes are temporary and due to a shortage of tests, according to the hospital system. It is experiencing a "delay in anticipated shipments" of supplies, according to a news release.

Advocate Aurora will suspend testing before gastrointestinal endoscopic procedures, interventional radiology and selective cardiology procedures. They will provide "enhanced" personal protective equipment to medical staff instead.

Testing will also stop for outpatient or clinic-based aerosol-generating procedures,which are procedures that generally produce more infectious respiratory droplets than when a patient coughs or sneezes.

With any aerosol-generating procedure that takes place, staff must wearfitted N95 masks and must have enough time to clean the room, otherwise the procedure must be postponed.

According to an email to employees obtained by the Journal Sentinel,Advocate Aurora Health has not received its lasttwo shipments of 17,000 tests. The system uses about 13,000 tests a week, according to the email, and hada supply of two to three days on hand as of Tuesday. It was working to finalize deals with other test providers in the coming two weeks.

On Thursday, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett said he had spoken with leaders at Advocate Aurora, who told him the testing stoppage was a temporary pause caused by a shortage of a certain reactive agent used in the tests. Barrett said local health officials would monitor the situation closely.

Advocate Aurora has been running drive-up testing at several of its hospitals across the state but will centralize testing at Aurora Sinai Medical Center in Milwaukee starting Thursday.

Temporarily closed are testing sites at Aurora Health Care Midtown in Milwaukee as well as the Aurora hospitals in: Oconomowoc, Kenosha, Oshkosh, Two Rivers and Burlington. All previously scheduled appointments at those locations will continue as planned, though.

In Illinois, all Advocate community testing sites and mobile sites will be closed.

Ascension Wisconsin also experienced a "supply disruption in recent weeks" buthasconnected withnew vendors and does not have a shortage of tests,Dr. Greg Brusko, chief clinical officer, said in a statement.

Ascensioncontinues to require every patient scheduled for an elective or non-emergency surgery to take a coronavirus test and it has not closed any testing sites. Its testing capacity remains unchanged.

And a spokeswoman for Froedtert Hospital and the Medical College of Wisconsin said that they have a sufficient supply of tests. Froedtert is continuing to test patients before surgery and new patients admitted to the hospital regardless of symptoms.

Those who think they may have COVID-19 can use the Advocate Aurora online symptom checker or call the 24-hour hotline: (866) 4432584.

For a list of local testing sites that remain open, click here.

Contact Sophie Carson at (414) 223-5512 or scarson@gannett.com. Follow heron Twitter at @SCarson_News.

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Advocate Aurora is short on COVID-19 supplies and will close most testing sites, stop testing some patients before surgery - Milwaukee Journal...