Assessment of facility-level antiretroviral treatment patient status utilizing a national-level laboratory cohort: Toward an understanding of system-level tracking and clinic switching in South Africa.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Most estimates of HIV retention are derived at the clinic level through antiretroviral (ART) patient management systems, which capture ART clinic visit data, yet these cannot account for silent transfers across HIV treatment sites. Patient laboratory monitoring visits may also be observed in routinely collected laboratory data, which include ART monitoring tests such as CD4 count and HIV viral load, key to our work here.

Methods

In this analysis, we utilized the NHLS National HIV Cohort (a system-wide viewpoint) to investigate the accuracy of facility-level estimates of retention in care for adult patients accessing care (defined using clinic visit data on patients under ART recorded in an electronic patient management system) at Themba Lethu Clinic (TLC). Further

SUBMITTER: Murphy JP 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9798405 | biostudies-literature | 2022

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature