Improve Antiretroviral (ARV) Management for HIV-Infected Patients:
Get Accurate and Timely Lab Results
Lab test results are crucial to the assessment of a patient’s health. Lab test results must be accurate and available in the medical record prior to the patient visit to allow HIV providers and patients to make informed decisions for effective antiretroviral ARV therapy — i.e., when to start, stop, and change ARV medications. The following strategies can increase the accuracy and timeliness of laboratory results and lead to more effective clinical decision making.
- Simplify the reporting of lab results to enable easy decision making by providers.
- Incorporate lab results from computerized lab systems into the medical record, including resistance tests.
- Coordinate blood drawing with office visits to reduce the number of patient visits; coordinate with other clinic or case management visits.
- Discuss lab restrictions for processing of blood specimens to avoid having to re-draw blood from patients.
- Develop a “Lab Error Plan” to track lab results and turnaround time:
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Identify when blood is not drawn or picked up
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Flag missing results for follow up
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Implement routine communication between nurses and lab staff
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Use a lab log to track when labs were completed
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Reschedule patient appointments if relevant lab results are not available in time for an appointment
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If necessary, have case managers or outreach staff accompany patients for labs
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Coordinate with lab staff and address information system issues
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Measure performance on an ongoing basis
- Shorten turnaround time for reporting of results by engaging staff in a quality improvement project.
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