Sensitivity measures how often a test correctly generates a positive result for
people who have the condition that’s being tested for (also known as the “true positive” rate). A test
that is highly sensitive will not generate many false-negative results and identify almost anybody who
has the disease.
Specificity measures a test’s ability to correctly generate a negative result for
people who don’t have the condition that’s being tested for (also known as the “true negative” rate). A
test with a high-specificity will correctly rule out almost everyone who doesn’t have the disease and
won’t generate many false-positive results.
Our strep testing has a 98.5% sensitivity for and 93.4% specificity for detecting
group A strep. This means on average; our test will generate a false negative 1.5% of the time and
a false positive 6.6% of the time.