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Forum will focus on mandatory names reporting for HIV
Banner Daily Update Tues. Nov. 14
By Elsa Allen
The method by which cases of HIV are reported to the state Dept. of Public Health changed earlier this year, and because of concern among medical providers, the local health clinic will offer a forum to answer residents’ questions.
Outer Cape Health Services will play host for the forum, from 6 to 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 14, at the Lobster Pot Restaurant, 321 Commercial St., Provincetown, to help explain the new regulations.
Following a mandate released in January of this year, all cases of HIV/AIDS must be reported using patients’ names rather than the unique identifier code that has been used in the past. Although the reporting still will be confidential and is the same as has been used for patients with AIDS since 1983, say state officials, this mandatory names reporting has the Cape medical community a bit apprehensive.
The changes are part of an effort to streamline the way HIV is reported nationally, allowing the Centers for Disease Control to more efficiently determine how to distribute funding.
“The CDC will only begin funding states based on the number of patients identified by name,” says Ricki Lacy, director of programming at Outer Cape Health Services Inc. “The federal government is under pressure to be clear that they are funding patients in the right places. … They fund people all over the country, and there were different standards on how HIV is reported in different states. They need to have the same standards in all states.”
According to Lacy, this move is an attempt to prevent funds from being distributed in duplicate to people who may reside in multiple states. It does, however, become a bit complicated when previous Massachusetts state laws are factored in.
“Massachusetts has a law on the books called Chapter 111, Section 70S. It actually says that no physician or health care provider can test someone without consent or disclose results without patient consent. For all of our patients that were reported under our old system, we can’t re-report those people. Based on 70S, you have an obligation to get that person’s consent to re-report them,” says Lacy.
The general concern, she says, is that this new rule may deter people from being tested for HIV due to fear that their name may somehow be released.
“The names are not sent anywhere,” she says. “They are only collected and stored at our own state Department [of Public Health].” The state department collects names for people with more than 80 communicable diseases.
“At a time when providers are working on identifying people with HIV sooner, the fear is that this might set us back a bit,” she explains. “The one side of the argument from advocacy groups is that this will deter people from being tested in their primary care. The one other way that people could get tested without having their name recorded is to use confidential state-funded testing sites. Their tests are done under a bar code. That’s still an option for people.”
OCHS runs both testing options in their facility. However, Lacy states, it is not only testing that triggers reporting to the state, but also being in care for HIV. In addition, she says, only Massachusetts residents need to be reported.
“I had a discussion at the Cape visit of the Consumer Advisory Board,” she says. “I think there is a mixed reaction among that group.
“People are concerned about making it harder. I said that we have been doing this with AIDS patients since 1983. This is not a major change in what’s happening in AIDS reporting. Everyone understands that the federal funds have been incredibly important in developing the best AIDS service systems around the country. Massachusetts has some of the best AIDS service and support services in the country because of federal funding.”
According to Lacy, all patients should be identified by the end of December. OCHS will be contacting all of its patients who are still HIV positive to request consent to re-report them by name.
“For all new patients who are now entering care, we will let them know that we are required to report their HIV status in the same way that we have always reported patients who were diagnosed with AIDS,” says Lacy.
The Nov. 14 forum will feature a number of local and regional health care workers, including Dr. Alfred DeMaria Jr., state epidemiologist and director of the Bureau of Communicable Disease Control; Kevin Cranston, director of the state Dept. of Public Health’s HIV/AIDS Bureau; Dr. Michael T. Wong, an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School; Matt Abar, a primary care provider at OCHS. The forum will be hosted by Dr. Rachel P. Baden and moderated by Harold Cox.
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Nov 8th, 2007