Accepted for/Published in: Journal of Medical Internet Research
Date Submitted: Jul 8, 2024
Date Accepted: Sep 16, 2024
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Retention in HIV Primary Care Using an Online Patient Engagement Platform: An Evaluation of Completed Scheduled Appointments
ABSTRACT
Background:
Digital interventions to improve retention in HIV care are critical to ensure viral suppression and prevent further transmission. AIDS Healthcare Foundation operates Healthcare Centers across the United States to provide primary HIV care. Healthvana piloted a digital platform at AIDS Healthcare Foundation’s Healthcare Centers to send patients short message service (SMS) appointment reminders and allow patients to review their upcoming appointment and view their laboratory results in the online patient portal.
Objective:
A national implementation of this digital intervention pilot by Healthvana aims to determine whether SMS appointment reminders and online patient portal logins improved retention in care compared to traditional methods.
Methods:
A retrospective analysis of 40,028 patients living with HIV was conducted at AIDS Healthcare Foundation’s 61 Healthcare Centers across the United States between January 2, 2017 and May 22, 2018. Separate binary logistic regression models evaluated the relationship between receiving SMS appointment reminders and completing scheduled appointments, as well as the relationship between logging into the online patient portal and completing scheduled appointments.
Results:
Patients who received the SMS appointment reminder were 1.7 times more likely to complete their scheduled appointment compared to patients who did not receive the SMS appointment reminder. In addition, patients who logged in to the online patient portal prior to their scheduled appointment were 7.4 times more likely to complete their scheduled appointment compared to patients who did not log in.
Conclusions:
HIV primary care appointment completion was higher when patients engaged with Healthvana’s digital platform. Digital technology interventions to ensure patients complete their scheduled HIV care appointments are imperative to curb the HIV epidemic.
Citation
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