A pragmatic approach to monitor and evaluate implementation and impact of differentiated ART delivery for global and national stakeholders.

INTRODUCTION: The World Health Organization's (WHO) recommendation of "Treat All" has accelerated the call for differentiated antiretroviral therapy (ART) delivery, a method of care that efficiently uses limited resources to increase access to HIV treatment. WHO has further recommended that stable individuals on ART receive refills every 3 to 6 months and attend clinical visits every 3 to 6 months. However, there is not yet consensus on how to ensure that the quality of services is maintained as countries strive to meet these standards. This commentary responds to this gap by defining a pragmatic approach to the monitoring and evaluation (M&E) of the scale up of differentiated ART delivery for global and national stakeholders. DISCUSSION: Programme managers need to demonstrate that the scale up of differentiated ART delivery is achieving the desired effectiveness and efficiency outcomes to justify continued support by national and global stakeholders. To achieve this goal, the two existing global WHO HIV treatment indicators of ART retention and viral suppression should be augmented with two broad aggregate measures. The addition of indicators measuring the frequency of (1) clinical and (2) refill visits by PLHIV per year will allow evaluation of the pace of scale up while monitoring its overall effect on the quality and efficiency of services. The combination of these four routinely collected aggregate indicators will also facilitate the comparison of outcomes among facilities, regions or countries implementing different models of ART delivery. Enhanced monitoring or additional assessments will be required to answer other critical questions on the process of implementation, acceptability, effectiveness and efficiency. CONCLUSIONS: These proposed outcomes are useful markers for the effectiveness and efficiency of the health system's attempts to deliver quality treatment to those who need it-and still reserve as much of the available resource pool as possible for other key elements of the HIV response.

A national evaluation using standardised patient actors to assess STI services in public sector clinical sentinel surveillance facilities in South Africa.

OBJECTIVES: Quality concerns in STI service delivery and missed opportunities for integration with HIV testing and prevention services in South Africa have been well documented. This national evaluation aimed to evaluate current utilisation and adherence to national STI guidelines, including partner notification and integration with HIV services, for diagnosis and management of STIs. METHODS: Facility surveys assessed infrastructure and resource availability, and standardised patient (SP) assessments evaluated quality of STI care in 50 public clinics in nine provinces in South Africa. The primary outcome was the proportion of SPs receiving essential STI care, defined as: offered an HIV test, condoms, partner notification counselling and correct syndromic treatment. Weighted proportions were generated, and SP findings were compared by gender using χ2 tests with Rao-Scott correction. RESULTS: More than 80% of facilities reported medications in stock, with the exceptions of oral cefixime (48.3%), oral erythromycin (75.1%) and paediatric syrups. Among 195 SP encounters, 18.7% (95% CI 10.7% to 30.5%) received all hypothesised essential STI services: offered HIV test (67.1%), offered condoms (31.4%), partner notification counselling (70.2%) and recommended syndromic treatment (60.7%). Men were more likely than women to be offered all services (25.1% vs 12.3%, p=0.023), recommended treatment (70.7% vs 50.9%, p=0.013) and partner notification counselling (79.9% vs 60.6%, p=0.020). Only 6.3% of providers discussed male circumcision with male SPs, and 26.3% discussed family planning with female SPs. CONCLUSIONS: This evaluation of STI services across South Africa found gaps in the availability of medications, adherence to STI guidelines, condom provision and prevention messaging. Limited integration with HIV services for this high-risk population was a missed opportunity. Quality of STI care should continue to be monitored, and interventions to improve quality should be prioritised as part of national strategic HIV and primary healthcare agendas.

Systems Mapping of Sexually Transmitted Infection Services at Three Clinical Sentinel Surveillance Sites in South Africa: Opportunities for Integrated Care.

Sexually transmitted infection (STI) service delivery in the context of integrated care and the South African HIV epidemic is complex. We aimed to document STI care and HIV testing processes in public health clinics in South Africa, revealing bottlenecks to patient flow and identifying opportunities for improvement. Clinic mapping, with semi-structured interviews and clinic observation, was conducted with facility representatives at three clinical sentinel surveillance sites. Facility surveys assessed patient volume and staffing. Identified challenges were associated with staffing allocations, and disruptions in patient flow resulted from poor clinic layout, inadequate lighting, and limited allocation of space for HIV testing and physical examination. Recommendations include staffing adjustments, reorganization of space to allow for designated service and waiting areas, sufficient supplies, and improved lighting. The facility reorganization component of South Africa's Ideal Clinic initiative provides a key opportunity for enacting many of these recommendations.

Three methods of delivering clinic-based training on syndromic management of sexually transmitted diseases in South Africa: a pilot study.

INTRODUCTION: The South African National Department of Health sought to improve syndromic management of sexually transmitted infections (STIs). Continuing medical education on STIs was delivered at primary healthcare (PHC) clinics using one of three training methods: (1) lecture, (2) computer and (3) paper-based. Clinics with training were compared with control clinics. METHODS: Ten PHC clinics were randomly assigned to control and 10 to each training method arm. Clinicians participated in on-site training on six modules; two per week for three weeks. Each clinic was visited by three or four unannounced standardised patient (SP) actors pre-training and post-training. Male SPs reported symptoms of male urethritis syndrome and female SPs reported symptoms of vaginal discharge syndrome. Quality of healthcare was measured by whether or not clinicians completed five tasks: HIV test, genital exam, correct medications, condoms and partner notification. RESULTS: An average of 31% of clinicians from each PHC attended each module. Quality of STI care was low. Pre-training (n=128) clinicians completed an average of 1.63 tasks. Post-training (n=114) they completed 1.73. There was no change in the number of STI tasks completed in the control arm and an 11% increase overall in the training arms relative to the control (ratio of relative risk (RRR)=1.11, 95% CI 0.67 to 1.84). Across training arms, there was a 26% increase (RRR=1.26, 95% CI 0.77 to 2.06) associated with lecture, 17% increase (RRR=1.17, 95% CI 0.59 to 2.28) with paper-based and 13% decrease (RRR=0.87, 95% CI 0.40 to 1.90) with computer arm relative to the control. CONCLUSIONS: Future interventions should address increasing training attendance and computer-based training effectiveness. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: AEARCTR-0000668.