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One body, one test, two lives.. patient centered strategy to increase HIV testing in pregnant women and their partners
Retrovirology volume 9, Article number: P70 (2012)
Background
NHSC, an urban community-based health center in New Jersey, USA, provides prenatal services, labor/ delivery to 750 uninsured/impoverished/minority women annually. Given that NJ has the third highest number of HIV women in USA and the highest number of HIV children, early HIV detection/ intervention in pregnant women become paramount. NHSC historically struggled with sub-optimal OB HIV testing rates (60%) and needed to make radical program changes to comply with CDC recommendations to ensure HIV testing is offered to 100% pregnant patients.
Methods
PDSA (Plan-Do-Study-Act) was conducted to test a new HIV testing approach: HIV Counselors are located in OB department; HIV counseling/ Rapid testing is done at OB registration; daily registration schedules are available to HIV Counselors; HIV results become part of OB records upon result availability; educational DVDs are utilized in patient areas to increase awareness/ interest.
Results
Per PDSA-improved strategy, NHSC sustained 100% compliance with CDC recommendations over the last three years. Rapid HIV testing and Rapid-on-Rapid positive result confirmation allow for smooth/timely transition from HIV testing to care/treatment for newly diagnosed HIV pregnant patients/partners.
Conclusions
The collected/analyzed data suggests that coordinated, patient-centered approach helps to: identify HIV positive pregnant patients in the first/second trimesters; immediately connect them to prenatal/HIV care to minimize vertical HIV transmission; provide prevention/treatment for partners including prevention for positives.
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This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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Kudryashova-Hernandez, L. One body, one test, two lives.. patient centered strategy to increase HIV testing in pregnant women and their partners. Retrovirology 9 (Suppl 1), P70 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1186/1742-4690-9-S1-P70
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/1742-4690-9-S1-P70
Keywords
- Pregnant Patient
- Result Confirmation
- Prenatal Service
- Result Availability
- Daily Registration