A System-Level Approach to Improve HIV Screening in an Urban Pediatric Primary Care Setting

Less than 50% of youth living with HIV know their status. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the United States Preventive Services Task Force recommend universal HIV screening in adolescence. Pediatric primary care settings are still lacking in testing youth who are at risk for HIV. Our objective was to determine whether implementing rapid HIV screening improved HIV screening rates and result receipt in 13- to 25-year-old pediatric primary patients.

From March 2014 to June 2015, a 4-cycle plan-do-study-act quality improvement model was used. A total of 4433 patients aged 13 to 25 years were eligible for HIV screening on the basis of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention criteria. Logistic regression with random effects was used to estimate the odds of HIV screening and screening with a rapid test compared with each previous cycle. Statistical process control charts using standard interpretation rules assessed the effect of patients receiving rapid HIV screening.

Baseline HIV screening rate was 29.6%; it increased to 82.7% in cycle 4. The odds of HIV screening increased 31% between cycle 1 and baseline (odds ratio 1.31 [95% confidence interval: 1.01-1.69]) to a 1272% increase between cycle 4 and baseline (odds ratio 12.72 [95% confidence interval: 10.45-15.48]), with most (90.4%) via rapid screening. Rapid screening yielded higher same-day result receipt . Five patients were identified with HIV and immediately linked to on-site care.

Rapid HIV screening and system-level modifications significantly increased screening rates and result receipt, revealing this to be an effective method to deliver HIV services to youth.