The implementation of the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act of 2009, permits health departments with the authority to establish programs to improve health care quality by the promotion of health IT and includes guidelines for receiving and transmitting secure electronic health information. When ELR health data has been verified for completeness, it enhances the ability to monitor HIV diagnosed patients for virologic failure that in some cases is associated with ADR. In recent years the transmission of HIV drug-resistant strains among persons with HIV has been an on-going concern. When drug-resistant HIV becomes resistance to more than one drug class, the control of viral replication becomes more difficult. Consequently, measuring the burden of antiretroviral resistance has risen in importance, ranking alongside other major public health concerns when planning HIV prevention campaigns. The analytical method illustrated here aims to improve monitoring of patients with increased viral replication that may lead to poor clinical outcomes and resistance to antiretroviral medications, leading to significant increases in monetary costs when prescriptions for secondline drug regiments are required.
Objective
The aim of this presentation is to illustrate a public health surveillance method for monitoring antiretroviral drug resistance (ADR) in persons diagnosed with human immunodeficiency virus infection (HIV). We developed procedures for examining HIV related electronic laboratory reports (ELR) transmitted to our health department surveillance system that link to corresponding clinical and demographic data for patients with varying degrees of antiretroviral drug resistance.