Principles for Ending Human Immunodeficiency Virus as an Epidemic in the United States: A Policy Paper of the Infectious Diseases Society of America and the HIV Medical Association.

While we have the tools to achieve this goal, the persistent barriers to healthcare services experienced by too many individuals will need to be addressed to make significant progress and improve the health and quality of life of all people with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). The necessary structural changes require actions by federal, state, and local policymakers and range from ensuring universal access to healthcare services to optimizing care delivery to ensuring a robust and diverse infectious diseases and HIV workforce. In this article, we outlines 10 key principles for policy reforms that, if advanced, would make ending the HIV epidemic in the United States possible and could have much more far-reaching effects in improving the health of our nation.

Does a Centralized Scheduling Process Improve Referral Timeliness?

Background: Timely, necessary specialist care is associated with better patient health outcomes and lower costs. This assessment looks at the effects of centralized scheduling, as well as patient and referral-level factors on referral completion rates. We hypothesized that centralized scheduling would increase access to specialty care, as evidenced by higher referral completion rates.

Acceptability of Rapid Point-of-Care Hepatitis C Tests Among People Who Inject Drugs and Utilize Syringe-Exchange Programs.

People who inject drugs may benefit from point-of-care hepatitis C virus (HCV) testing offered at syringe exchanges. We sought to understand whether this population would be willing to undergo rapid HCV testing. We found that there was broad support for rapid HCV testing, especially among younger people who inject drugs with high perceived risk.

Provider Workforce Assessment in a Rural Hepatitis C Epidemic: Implications for Scale-up of Antiviral Therapy.

New recommendations for birth cohort screening for hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection and the development of new, highly effective antiviral medications are expected to increase the demand for HCV treatment. In the past, antiviral therapy for HCV was almost exclusively prescribed by specialists in the field of gastroenterology and infectious diseases, meaning that people living in rural areas that are underserved by specialists may have poor access to treatment. We investigated the number and geographic distribution of medical providers who actively prescribed direct acting antiviral drugs for hepatitis C in Wisconsin during 2012.

Barriers and facilitators of hepatitis C screening among people who inject drugs: a multi-city, mixed-methods study.

Background: People who inject drugs (PWID) are at high risk of contracting and transmitting and hepatitis C virus (HCV). While accurate screening tests and effective treatment are increasingly available, prior research indicates that many PWID are unaware of their HCV status.

Methods: We examined characteristics associated with HCV screening among 553 PWID utilizing a free, multi-site syringe exchange program (SEP) in 7 cities throughout Wisconsin.

Anemia in HIV-infected adults: epidemiology, pathogenesis, and clinical management.

Anemia is the most common cytopenia seen in people with HIV. Independent of CD4 count and HIV-viral load, anemia has been shown to correlate with increased mortality. Furthermore, successful treatment of anemia has been shown to reduce this risk of death in a comparison with patients with similar immunologic and virologic parameters who are not treated.