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COPYRIGHT 2006 A Thomson Healthcare Company
Do you have the time — or the money — to offer HIV screenings?
New CDC guidelines encourage all EDs to offer testing
Offering routine HIV testing to ED patients is something that probably sounds good to an ED manager with a strong sense of his or her public health mission. It also is, however, something more easily thought than done.
Due to the considerable barriers to such programs (for example, cost, lack of staff, and lack of time), only 30-50 EDs in the country have one in place. There is hope, however, that things soon may improve. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) soon will revise its guidelines to ease the burdens for EDs and to encourage all EDs to offer these tests.
Meanwhile, some creative ED managers are finding ways to surmount those barriers. For example, Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami has just begun offering routine HIV tests free of charge to all patients who are admitted to their ED with a medical problem, and the University of Cincinnati Hospital has had a program in place for years.
Still, they are definitely in the minority. "Most EDs will not do testing for this disease, because the process includes obtaining informed consent, providing counsel, maintaining confidentiality, and ensuring appropriate follow-up," explains James Augustine,...
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