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Background: Since the outset of the HIV epidemic in the mid-eighties, the Florida Bureaus of STD and HIV/AIDS Prevention made the decision to integrate HIV Partner Services (PS) into the existing STD Program infrastructure. Fully realizing the same populations were impacted by syphilis and HIV and other STIs, it made perfect programmatic and economic sense then, and remains the most efficient approach today.
Objectives: To highlight benefits of program integration at the client service delivery level, benefits of universal information security standards and data sharing.
Project Description: In Florida, integration of STD and HIV prevention programs has been in place for 30 years. This arrangement has proven very successful and remains the most efficient and productive approach to the provision of services to the ever- increasing overlap in populations served. Example, in 2010 nearly 50% of all persons diagnosed with infectious syphilis were also infected with HIV at the time of their syphilis diagnosis.
Findings: Through program collaboration, the Bureaus of STD and HIV/AIDS Prevention have increased program efficiencies in patient care, PS, data analysis/ monitoring, quality assurance, and improved information security.
Conclusions: Since universal information security standards are applicable to ALL disease control staff, it has served as the foundation for our success with program integration. Through instantaneous data sharing between programs, we have achieved vast improvements of time frames for PS and client medical services. In the past five years alone, the proportion of new HIV reports with “No Identified Risk” (NIR) declined from 25% to 15%, a direct result of AIDS Surveillance having direct access to the PRISM database that stores all HIV PS data.
Implications for Programs, Policy, and Research: In these economic times the only choice is program collaboration, data sharing and service integration to maintain critical STD/HIV services.