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Manya Magnus, PhD, MPH1, Jane Herwehe, MPH2, Laura Andrews, MPH2, Nathan Daigrepont2, Tanya Brown, BS2, Newton Hyslop, MD3, and Michael Kaiser, MD2. (1) School of Public Health and Health Services, George Washington University, 2300 Eye Street, Ross Hall, Ross Hall 120b, Washington, DC 20037, (202) 994-3024, sphmdm@gwumc.edu, (2) Health Sciences Center, Health Care Services Division, Louisiana State University, 8550 United Plaza Blvd, 4th floor, Baton Rouge, LA 70809, (3) Infectious Disease Section Health Sciences Center, Tulane University, 1430 Tulane Avenue, SL87, New Orleans, LA 70112
Background. Louisiana state-funded HIV clinics (serving > 6,000 individuals) have identified 2 barriers to care: poor organization of medical information and inability to access patient data. An HIV-specific, interactive database—the information technology intervention (ITI)—was implemented to overcome these. This study evaluated the ITI and its association with improvements in information access and provider satisfaction. Methods. This prospective evaluation used two data sources: provider surveys and system data. Provider self-reported time expenditures for HIV-specific tasks and characteristics of utilization were compared. Analyses were conducted using Stata. Results. Between 5/6/03 and 11/30/03, 61088 records on 1365 unique patients were accessed by 37 providers with ITI. Use increased over time, but was not evenly distributed with 90% of the uses by only 10 of the providers. Utilization data indicated that providers accessed the system to view or enter medications (23%), patient information (22%), lab data (17%), diagnoses (12%), and to print educational materials (<1%). Providers reported an increase in dissemination of educational materials and reductions in time required to locate CD4 count, viral load, clinical data, and ARV, and reported a decrease in the time to identify current ARV [mean 3.6 min, sd 3.0 vs. 1.2, sd 0.7, p <0.02] following ITI. Post-ITI, 46% of providers ranked ITI as the easiest to use of all medical record methods vs. 29% at baseline. Conclusions. Improvements in the organization of medical data may improve HIV care; IT may be associated with reductions in time to find data and improved dissemination of educational materials.
Learning Objectives:
Keywords: Information Technology, HIV/AIDS
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.