HITEQ Center, June 2023
With nearly 100% of community health centers utilizing electronic health records (EHR) to care for patients, focus has pivoted from implementation and new workflow development to enhancement in order to drive value and reflect patient needs and population trends. EHR technology presents potential opportunities and significant constraints. Providers frequently document and share potentially sensitive information in the EHR, such as risk for intimate partner violence (IPV), consistent offers of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), or patient sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI). Capturing such information can be immensely helpful in providing care tailored to individuals’ needs, but additionally challenges teams to develop workflows that keep the data private rather than risk harm to patients through improper or unintended disclosure.
Identifying opportunities for improvements in health centers
In the 2022 UDS, United States health centers reported 7,328,565 of their 16,835,841 eligible medical patients (43.53%) were tested for HIV at least once after their 15th birthday and before their 66th birthday.
Health center examples, developed June 2022
Since 2020, health centers have reported the HIV Screening clinical quality measure on the UDS. HITEQ hosted discussions with health centers in fall of 2021 to find out how they have made progress on this clinical quality measure and gleaned tips from these participants which can be found within.
Curated PrEP resources for health centers, compliation in 2022.
HITEQ compiled this resource library for health centers, which houses actionable PrEP resources including checklists, pocket guides, and billing guidance. This curated set of resources aims to assist health centers in accessing those resources that directly address current PrEP challenges.
Health HIV Medical Education
Activity Description: PrEP continues to be underused by people who could benefit from it, especially those who face health disparities. Of the 1.2 million people in the U.S. who can benefit from taking PrEP, only about 23% have used PrEP. Data on PrEP coverage shows that racial/ethnic minorities, sexual minorities, youth, and women access PrEP at even lower rates. The interactive live webinar will feature perspectives of multiple diverse HIV prevention experts on PrEP uptake among relevant consumer/patient communities, including Black women, same-gender-loving (SGL) Black and Latinx men, and transgender individuals. Presenters will consider both challenges and opportunities for PrEP use among these communities,specific access issues, and strategies and model practices for providers and healthcare teams to address the unique barriers.