Blog Part 3: Improve caseload management of loss to follow up in HIV care

There are an estimated 4,500 patients in England who have disengaged with HIV care: more than the number of people living with HIV who are undiagnosed. That’s a staggering number, which represents significant additional workload for services.

Encouraging these people to reengage with HIV care pathways is critical if we are to achieve 0 by 30 targets. But how can already stretched services look to improve caseload management to ensure at risk patients are retained and those already lost are effectively reengaged?

Just as technology can provide fast, accurate insight into patient data and automate key processes, it can also help services to improve caseload management of loss to follow up.

Systems like Inform HIV achieve this in several ways. Here are some examples:

1) Visualising KPIs
This helps keep patient retention/re-engagement at the forefront of healthcare professionals’ minds. It also supports better understanding of what the service’s caseload actually is, what’s going on with patients, and what action is required.

2) Triggering tasks based on service defined rules
For instance, if a patient has cancelled an appointment and hasn’t rebooked within a set time frame, service defined rules can be used to trigger a task to someone to investigate that patient and send them a message.

3) Improving patient communication
Systems like Inform PHR can automate patient communication, while providing a more secure messaging option compared with text messages or emails. PHR has the added advantage of enabling services to see when messages have been received and read by the patient too.

These benefits combine to facilitate better caseload management, helping to both prevent at-risk patients from discontinuing their care and reengage those who have already been lost, all while optimising service efficiencies.

In our next instalment of this blog series, we’ll be looking at how technology can not only support reengagement efforts but enhance patient adherence with care pathways to prevent loss to follow up.

To learn more about how Inform HIV and the PHR can support your service to better manage loss to follow up click here.