Battling the Stigma: HIV Screening in Resident Primary Care Clinic

INTRODUCTION: HIV affects ~1.2 million in the US, with 25% unaware of their statusand annual incidence of 50,000. Early detection and treatment reduces risk of AIDS-related deaths and transmission. Both the CDC and the US Preventative Service Task Force recommend routine HIV screening. The Providence Medical Group at St Vincent (PMG-STV) resident clinic has no routine screening protocol. • 24% (757/3139) of all clinic patients have ever been screened. • Of active clinic patients seen quarterly, 5% are offered screening with only 3% completing screening. We implemented and measured a clinic-wide HIV screening protocol leveraging existing clinic workflows. We aimed to increase screening of active clinic patients from 3% to 25% at one year. METHODS: Using a time-series design we measured quarterly rates of HIV screening tests ordered and resulted in active clinic patients, ages 18-65 and seen in office, during the study period. We utilized a pre-existing preventative healthcare workflow for routine cancer screening, influenza vaccines, etc. We introduced this workflow to residents and staff prior to our go-live date. RESULTS / DISCUSSION: Our primary outcome was to increase quarterly HIV screening rate of active patients, with a secondary outcome to increase overall clinic HIV screening rate. We increased the quarterly screening rate of active patients from 3.34% to 9.19% (Phttps://digitalcommons.providence.org/psv_internal/1011/thumbnail.jp