Table 2.
Intervention | Description | Delivery |
---|---|---|
Hospital-based testing | Integrate the routine offering of HIV testing into clinical practice in hospitals | Simplified pretest guideline while maintaining verbal informed consent Included a new patient follow-up process allowing for post-test counseling, education, public health follow-up, and linkage to care to be delegated to Vancouver Coastal Health Authority, communicable disease control nurses |
ED testing | Integrate the routine offering of HIV testing into clinical practice in EDs | Introduced similarly as hospital-based testing |
Outpatient clinic testing | Increase the routine offering of HIV testing to adult patients who had not been tested in the last year or presented specific risk, clinical symptoms, or the diagnosis of another sexually transmitted disease | Simplified pretest guideline while maintaining verbal informed consent. Consisted of training, continuing medical education credits, approved by the College of Family Physicians of Canada, and ongoing in-practice support |
ART initiation | Expanded support to help gain access to ART | Low-barrier patient-centric support to liaise with a continuum of health and social services was provided by a multidisciplinary team that included healthcare professionals, social workers, and trained peer navigators |
ART retention | Expanded case management to maintain ART adherence and help ART reinitiation among patients who have discontinued ART | When required, one-on-one adherence monitoring and support was provided Following a referral for case management, outreach workers attempted to locate patients who had discontinued ART |
The STOP initiative period was 2011–2013.
Abbreviations: ART, highly active antiretroviral treatment; ED, emergency department; HIV, human immunodeficiency virus.