Of more than 1.2 million people in the United States with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), approximately 87% are aware of their HIV diagnosis [
1], but only 76.0% of those are engaged and 57.8% retained in medical care [
2]. Often, there is a delay between HIV diagnosis and initiation of antiretroviral therapy (ART), due to unnecessary complexities in the care delivery system, increasing the likelihood that patients fall out of care. However, initiation of ART within a week of HIV diagnosis for newly diagnosed individuals or those re-entering care reduces the time to viral suppression [
3].
In 2020, the Health Resources and Services Administration’s (HRSA) HIV/AIDS Bureau Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program (RWHAP) Part F – Special Projects of National Significance (SPNS) funded the “Building Capacity to Implement Rapid ART Start for Improved Care Engagement in Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program” Initiative, with its Evaluation and Technical Assistance Provider (ETAP) awarded to the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) Center for AIDS Prevention (CAPS). The ETAP’s role is to provide support to, and evaluate the implementation of, rapid ART start in 14 RWHAP settings across the U.S. with the goal of developing an implementation blueprint for integrating immediate access to ART in HIV care settings. In this manuscript, we describe the approach to evaluate whether and how strategies undertaken improve: organizational capacity, delivery of rapid ART start, and patient outcomes associated with engagement in care.
Background
In 2013, the Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital’s Ward 86 HIV clinic implemented services for providing ART on the same day as HIV diagnosis [
4]. Between 2013 and 2017, 96% of patients accepted immediate ART and 96% achieved viral suppression within 1 year of starting ART [
5,
6]. Results in comparable programs [
7,
8] prompted the World Health Organization (WHO) to recommend universal “test and treat” [
9] and was soon followed by other HIV clinical care professional organizations [
10]. Current U.S. Department of Health and Human Services guidelines now endorse treatment as early after diagnosis as possible, same day if feasible [
11], as do the European AIDS Clinical Society (EACS) and International Antiviral Society (IAS) [
12].
ART initiation is considered “rapid” when treatment begins as soon as possible after a positive HIV test [
13] though at present, there is no unified, evidence-based definition for rapid ART start nor standard protocols for implementing or evaluating rapid ART start services [
12]. Regardless, evidence suggests that shortening the time between diagnosis and ART initiation is linked to increased retention in HIV care and decreased time to viral suppression [
14‐
19], higher quality of life [
20], lower risk of partner infection [
21,
22], better health outcomes and slower disease progression [
23‐
25], and lower mortality. [
26]
Delivery of rapid start ART services requires organizational
reorganization of procedures, multidisciplinary coordination, and consolidation of patient services, including clinical evaluation, education, counseling, ascertainment of healthcare coverage and laboratory testing, all fit into a 2- to 3-hour initial clinic visit [
5,
27].
Time is required to arrange healthcare coverage if needed, initiate work with patients for psychological and social stabilization, provide education and counseling about HIV and ART, and select an appropriate ART regimen for the patient [
4,
28]. Specific
data collection strategies have also emerged as important tools for driving implementation, assessing success, and facilitating sustainability [
6].
Barriers to rapid ART start service deployment exist on multiple levels [
29]. Identified barriers for people with HIV include poverty and its sequelae [
30‐
34], behavioral health conditions [
35], HIV treatment literacy [
36], stigma [
36,
37], and disease co-infection [
38,
39]. At the organizational level, barriers include HIV workforce challenges [
40‐
42], data sharing restrictions [
43,
44], and healthcare coverage issues [
28,
45]. Institutional inertia, access to same-day insurance, personnel [
46], clinic capacity issues, inefficient referral networks, and lack of culturally-appropriate care [
47] are likely to affect access to rapid ART start services. Strains on the HIV care workforce raise questions about the long-term sustainability; provider shortages and increased demand on linkage to care or navigation services are also challenges [
48]. Costs for initiation of rapid ART start services and processes, patient load, and the variety of third-party payers can all affect rapid ART start implementation [
49]. In New Orleans, the high percentage of the patient population already enrolled in Medicaid at the time of linkage was an important determinant of success [
8]. Implementation within states that did not expand Medicaid can face significant challenges.
Rapid start initiative description and evaluation
The RWHAP SPNS Rapid Start ART initiative is a three-year project and funds 14 RWHAP implementation sites initiating and/or expanding rapid ART initiation. Sites differ in the context in which those services are provided (university hospitals, federally qualified health centers, community-based organizations), and where they are located throughout the U.S. (rural and urban settings). To support implementation, we have utilized the Institute for Healthcare Improvement’s Collaborative Model [
50] (colloquially known as “learning collaboratives”) as a primary technical assistance mechanism [
51]. We have used a similar approach on multiple prior HIV service projects [
52,
53]. Each of the implementation sites work with an assigned coach with expertise in quality improvement (QI) methods in HIV care delivery; participate in initiative-wide, two-day Learning Sessions three times a year; and attend webinars and cohort meetings that include peer learning and/or experts in rapid ART start. We have developed and are executing an implementation study as our multi-site evaluation, based on an integration of implementation research frameworks.
Discussion
The clinical benefits of rapid ART start following diagnosis of HIV infection have been demonstrated in numerous studies, accelerating entry into care, shortening times to viral suppression, declining in morbidity, and preventing onward transmission. However, models for delivery of rapid ART start are not well studied or articulated in ways that provide practical guidance about how services should be organized and delivered to achieve maximum outcomes, or to reach diverse groups of patients, particularly those who are most marginalized in the health system, including sexual and racial minorities and those who are unhoused, have experience in carceral systems, use substances, or have a diagnosis of mental illness. Strategies remain untested, uncodified, and have not been disseminated to promote wide uptake of rapid ART start in all HIV care settings. Accelerating access to care and ART initiation, this initiative will help prevent the onward transmission of HIV, developing and testing models of care that will help newly diagnosed patients and those out of care quickly achieve viral suppression. This initiative’s work can reduce barriers to care for all patients, reducing disparities and increasing equity.
Current studies reflect specific contexts and populations and do not account for implementation strategies within service delivery models, nor for patient population contexts [
65,
66]. These studies underscore the importance of embedding rapid ART start within carefully designed programs that not only offer medication but also attend to engagement in care and support the complex needs of people on lifelong ART to prevent attrition. Our evaluation will document the factors associated with implementation, with particular attention to organizational context [
67]. Each of the implementation sites in this project is developing a unique protocol for delivery of rapid ART start that address details about service delivery, allocation of staffing, roles and responsibilities, clinic flow, and data collection systems among other implementation strategies. These protocols are iterative and reflect changes tested through QI cycles in their Learning Collaborative participation. The compilation of these successful tests of change, demonstrated through improved performance metrics of clinical outcomes, will contribute to a project capstone implementation guide that will reflect the best practices of implementation of rapid ART start across sites. Our systematic collection of data associated with clinic uptake and the documentation of changes required to implement rapid ART start for this evaluation has the potential to produce important information–in fact the blueprint–for the implementation of rapid ART start.
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