Expert Meeting to Specify Priority HIV Policy-Relevant Issues

The HIV Resource Utilization Data Coordinating Center (DCC) was established under a contract between AHRQ and the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. The DCC makes use of an existing HIV provider network (the HIV Quality Care Network) to provide health services cost and utilization data linked to clinical data on HIV-infected persons.

Currently, the 18 provider sites in the DCC have provided data on more than 12,000 patients for the period from January through June 1998. In May 2000, these sites will provide data for the period January through June 1999.

The DCC is supported by AHRQ, the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE), and the Office of AIDS Research (NIH).

On Friday, March 3, 2000, the "Expert Meeting to Specify Priority HIV Policy-Relevant Issues" was held at the Washington Court Hotel in Washington, D.C., to provide guidance to the DCC and its future work.

Thirty participants attended the meeting, including representatives from participating provider sites, the pharmaceutical industry, research organizations, and state and federal government. Highlights from the 1-day meeting included:

• A presentation by Dr. Richard Moore (Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine) on preliminary data from the sites that revealed significant differences in access to care across racial/ethnic groups and geographic areas.
• A lively discussion facilitated by Larry Bartlett (Health Systems Research, Inc.) of research and policy questions related to the provision of HIV care, designed to help define the scope and direction of the DCC activities in future years.

There also was considerable excitement at the meeting about the potential of the DCC to inform policymakers, researchers, and clinicians about real-time changes in the way persons with HIV disease are treated. In particular, several clinicians indicated that participation in the DCC had already benefited their programs. For example:

• Dr. Gary Kalkut (Montefiore Medical Center) indicated that data from this project changed the way they budgeted and provided care.
• Dr. Richard Rustein (Children's Hospital of Pennsylvania) stated that data from this project helped them negotiate capitation contracts with managed care plans for the care of HIV-infected children.

A summary report of the meeting will be available by June 2000. To obtain a copy of this report or for further information about the DCC, contact Fred Hellinger at AHRQ's Center for Organization and Delivery Studies (E-mail: fhelling@ahrq.gov).

Current as of April 2000

Internet Citation:

Expert Meeting to Specify Priority HIV Policy-Relevant Issues. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Rockville, MD. http://www.ahrq.gov/about/cods/codsdcc.htm