Business
Gundersen drive-through lab opens Wednesday near Bridgeview
Most people are used to drive-up restaurant service, and banking, and almost any other kind of business.
Now, partly because of COVID-19, drive-through medical care is becoming common.
Gundersen opens a new permanent drive-up lab in north La Crosse, at 8 a.m. Wednesday.
It’s designed as a convenient way to get COVID testing or flu shots, or even giving blood samples.
Cars will use two lanes to drive into the building where the testing is done.
On Tuesday, local media were given a demonstration of the lab’s operation, as a lab worker drew blood from a volunteer who stayed in the driver’s seat of her vehicle.
Clinical manager Shelly Niedfeldt of Gundersen says plans for the facility were in the works before the pandemic, but COVID hastened the development of a year-round building for quick medical service and testing.
The Drive-Up Lab is on Mulberry Lane, in a former warehouse next to the Riverside Amusement Park.