The use of electronic medical records to prompt HIV testing

Key take-home message

• Canada has met The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) goal of testing 90% of all people living with HIV; however, an estimated 6,950 people living with HIV remain undiagnosed. Providing HIV testing that is both accessible and feasible remains critical to ensure high-risk individuals can be tested and people living with HIV can be linked to care.
• Non-targeted screening using electronic medical record (EMR) systems as alerts has shown to increase testing rates in hospitals, emergency departments, and primary care practices.
• Utilizing an EMR to trigger an HIV testing alert in various health care settings has been used to effectively target individuals who are at a high risk of acquiring HIV. Health care settings that integrated EMR screening programs alongside indicator condition testing and routine, opt-out HIV testing observed an increase in screening rates.
• Emergency department overcrowding and failure to inform patients of their eligibility to receive HIV testing can decrease rates of EMR-driven HIV screening. Replacing an automatic HIV requisition ordering protocol with a manual entry can also decrease HIV screening, leading to missed HIV diagnoses.

• Epidemiology and Determinants of Health
  • Determinants of Health
• Determinants of Health
  • Health services
• Population(s)
  • General HIV- population
• Testing
  • Testing
• Health Systems
  • Delivery arrangements