Data Storyteller

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.

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.

Primary care plays a key role in ending the HIV epidemic. The Ending the HIV Epidemic initiative launched across HHS in 2019, setting forth four key strategies also called the “four pillars” of ending the HIV epidemic. Primary care in federally qualified health centers figures centrally into these efforts, evidenced by the addition of several HIV screening and prevention measures and metrics in the Uniform Data System (UDS) reporting. This webinar reviewed the outcomes of the first year of HIV Screening and Prevention reporting on the UDS, highlight opportunities for quality improvement, and discussed funding opportunities.

HIV testing is one of the many ways we can End the HIV Epidemic. HITEQ's latest blog post offers strategies for leveraging your EHR to make HIV screening a breeze at your health center.