Data to Care Pilot Program in Chicago: Experience, Outcomes, and Direction for the Future.

CONTEXT: Data to Care (D2C) involves sharing HIV surveillance data between health care facilities and health departments to improve continuity of care for people living with HIV (PLWH). The Chicago Department of Public Health (CDPH) initiated a D2C pilot program at the University of Chicago Medicine (UCM) from June 2016 to September 2019. OBJECTIVES: To describe the proportion of patients reported by UCM as not in care who were able to be matched to CDPH enhanced HIV/AIDS Reporting System (eHARS) and to report the individual-level factors associated with matching and viral suppression. DESIGN: Retrospective program evaluation. SETTING: UCM, an academic health care center that provides HIV care to adults via a Ryan White clinic on the south side of Chicago. PARTICIPANTS: Adult PLWH who had received care at UCM but did not have current documented HIV care visit(s). MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE: Proportion of matched patients; factors associated with matching and viral suppression. RESULTS: Overall, 72.4% (n = 813/1123) of patients reported by UCM were matched by CDPH to eHARS. Individuals aged 40 to 49 years (odds ratio [OR] = 1.99; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.10-3.62), 50 to 59 years (OR = 2.47; 95% CI, 1.37-4.47), and 60 years or older (OR = 6.18; 95% CI, 3.18-12.32) were more likely to match in eHARS. People who lived outside of Chicago (OR = 0.09; 95% CI, 0.05-0.15) or with unknown zip codes (OR = 0.08; 95% CI, 0.05-0.12) were less likely to match. Men who have sex with men and persons older than 50 years were more likely to be virally suppressed. CONCLUSIONS: D2C is an evidence-based strategy for reengagement of PLWH; however, program implementation relies on successful data matching. We found that a large proportion of patients from UCM were not matched, particularly those who were younger or lived outside of Chicago. Additional research is needed to understand ways to improve data matching to facilitate reengagement in HIV care.

Measuring Retention in HIV Care in the First Year of the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Impact of Telehealth.

It is unknown how the COVID-19 pandemic impacted traditional measures of retention in HIV care. We calculated six different retention measures at an urban HIV care clinic for two time periods: pre-pandemic, and during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, with and without inclusion of telehealth appointments. Spearman rank correlation was used to assess correlation between different measures of retention. For both the pre-pandemic and pandemic time periods, there was strong correlation among measures of missed visits (range 0.857-0.957). More patients were considered retained in care during the pandemic when telehealth appointments were included in the analysis.