HIVnet
Overview
HIVnet is a tool that provides information on
inpatient and outpatient utilization by persons
with HIV disease. This information is valuable
for service providers, program planners,
policymakers, and health services researchers.
HIVnet is focused on health services delivery.
It does not contain information on outcomes of treatment for HIV
infection or on how to access HIV-related
services in your community.
HIVnet provides easy access
to selected statistics on patterns of HIV-related
care. These statistics are based on data
collected by the HIV Research Network (HIVRN).
Users of HIVnet should be aware that
these statistics represent circumstances at several
large HIV practices. The data are not based on a
national probability sample, and the data may not
represent circumstances at practices that see
relatively few HIV-infected patients.
To ensure that the identities of patients and practices
remain confidential, HIVnet does not
contain any information that can identify individual
patients or providers. For the same reason,
information on the geographic region of the country is
not available. HIVnet enables users to examine resource
utilization for specific demographic and clinical subgroups.
To preserve confidentiality, however, HIVnet
reports only one subgroup breakdown at a
time; users cannot obtain resource utilization statistics
for combinations of factors (such as a combination of
gender, race, and age). For cross-tabulations,
information for cells with small numbers of patients is
also suppressed. |
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Description
of the HIV Research Network
The goal of the HIV Research Network (HIVRN) is to obtain,
analyze, and disseminate current information on the
delivery of services to people with HIV infection.
Treatment of HIV infection is complex. New drugs are
being developed rapidly, and treatment guidelines
change frequently. Policymakers, service providers,
and patients need to know how often people with HIV
infection receive specific services, and what factors
are related to receiving more or fewer services. The
HIVRN was designed to disseminate
this information widely, using the most recent available
data.
The HIVRN currently includes 18
medical practices located across the United States that treat more than 14,000 patients. Each practice collects information on the clinical and demographic characteristics of their patients with HIV infection, the medications they are prescribed, and the frequency
of each patient's outpatient clinic visits, and the number of inpatient admissions. Each practice sends information to the data coordinating center located at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, which consolidates this information into a single uniform database. Statistics in the HIVnet are based on this database.
At present, statistics displayed on the HIVnet are derived from the 12 medical practices that provided comprehensive resource utilization data for 2000. The statistics combine data from the 12 sites, and the sample size for statistics varies, depending on the extent of missing data.
The HIVRN is sponsored by several Federal agencies: the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment in the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), the HIV/AIDS Bureau in the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), and the Office of AIDS Research in the Office of the Director of the National Institutes of Health (OAR/NIH).
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