Evaluation of the Utility of Point-of-Care HIV Testing on a Canadian Internal Medicine Inpatient Unit

Abstract

Point-of-care (POC) HIV testing has been shown to be an acceptable method for increasing HIV testing uptake. To date, no studies have examined the use of POC testing for routine HIV screening on the medicine inpatient unit. A prospective cross-sectional study was conducted over a three-month period in July, August, and October 2016 to evaluate the prevalence of undiagnosed HIV and the attitudes towards routine POC HIV testing. Patients admitted directly to medicine inpatient teaching units at a tertiary hospital in Winnipeg, Canada, were approached for participation. The POC HIV test was administered at the bedside. Reactive and indeterminate tests were confirmed with standard serological HIV testing. Participants were given a questionnaire regarding their attitudes towards POC testing on the unit. Although no cases of previously undiagnosed HIV were identified during the study period, only 35% of participants were found to have ever had HIV testing previously. The majority of participants were satisfied with the POC testing experience and would choose to have the POC testing again. Overall, the low rate of outpatient testing highlights the need for routine HIV testing on an inpatient basis.

Findings from a novel and scalable community-based HIV testing approach to reduce the time required to complete point-of-care HIV testing in South Africa

“…The reduced testing times of the INSTI point-of care (POC) test have also been shown to result in high levels of satisfaction by both clients and HTS providers [15,16]. However, despite the prequalification of the INSTI-POC test by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in 2013, and its transformative potential to increase the volume of HTS in high burden settings; there are few published findings on the implementation outcomes from using INSTI in routine programmes or research settings [15,17].…”

Study of the Barriers to the Introduction of Kazakhstan Nongovernmental Organizations-Based Rapid Hiv Testing

“…Results and Discussion. When analyzing the study results, we were first of all guided by the existing international experience in this problem, the best international practices of many countries where it has been convincingly established that inexpensive rapid HIV tests allowing health workers to carry out clinic-, NGO-, community-based testing under field conditions [9][10][11][12][13] are already introduced into medical practices. So, according to J.…”

Scientific Justification for the Implementation of the Integrated Model of Rapid Testing for Hiv-Infection Among Key Populations of Kazakhstan

“…164 dated April 14, 2017; materials of the working session "Improvement of HIV/STD testing algorithms in the Republic of Kazakhstan" (2019); collection of the examples of the best practices in public health services in the field of response to and prevention of HIV infection in the WHO European region (2018), new updated WHO, UNEADS documents: Guidelines for self-testing for HIV and informing of partners. December 2016 (2017); updated guidelines on testing for HIV" (2018) [1,[2][3][4][5][6][7], numerous foreign and domestic scientific studies on the problem of implementation of the procedure of rapid testing for HIV infection [8][9][10][11][12] have become a kind of methodological guidelines, informational scientific materials that aim public health professionals to successful making of efforts in the field of organization of preventive measures in case of HIV/AIDS, including rendering of services on rapid testing for HIV among key populations. Published materials of WHO UNAIDS state the need in implementation of the methodology on rapid testing for HIV-infection in Kazakhstan among key populations, nongovernmental organizations, and local communities.…”