Inform Health has been named as the gold sponsor for St. Mary’s Sexual Assault Referral Centre’s 2024 Annual Conference.

Patients in Devon are being empowered to self-manage aspects of their sexual health following the successful implementation of Inform Health’s electronic patient record system, and the patient facing Personal Health Record, across Devon Sexual Health Services.

While the secrecy HIV is often shrouded in can perpetuate stigma, sharing patient information without the patient’s express permission is clearly off the table and rightly so.

That said, improving multi-agency information sharing does form part of the solution to a) establishing if patients are receiving care elsewhere (via liaison with UKHSA for instance) and b) in re-engaging patients lost to care completely.

Staff from Inform Health were in attendance on Friday 10 November as outstanding teams and individuals working in the Lincolnshire Community Health Services NHS Trust (LCHS) were recognised at this year's Celebrating Success Awards.

The Inform Health-sponsored ceremony, which was held at the Brackenborough Hotel in Louth, saw 11 different awards given out to staff whose dedication and commitment to delivering outstanding care makes a huge difference in the communities served by LCHS.

Technology is by no means the silver bullet in solving the issue of loss to follow up in HIV care. But as we have covered in previous instalments of this series, it can support services to retain and reengage patients in several ways

Technology can support HIV services on their mission to reduce loss to follow up in several ways, from providing fast access to accurate patient cohort data, to automating processes, streamlining caseload management, and encouraging patients to adhere to care pathways.

There are many reasons patients disengage with HIV care pathways. Multifaceted, intersectional factors – from competing needs to problematic substance use, mental health issues to stigma and immigration status – can all form barriers to access and negatively impact patient adherence with HIV care pathways.

One-way services can look to improve adherence is by improving patient centricity and removing common barriers to access. Technology, like the Personal Health Record, can play an important role in facilitating this

There are an estimated 4,500 patients in England who have disengaged with HIV care: more than the number of people living with HIV who are undiagnosed. That’s a staggering number, which represents significant additional workload for services.

Encouraging these people to reengage with HIV care pathways is critical if we are to achieve 0 by 30 targets. But how can already stretched services look to improve caseload management to ensure at risk patients are retained and those already lost are effectively reengaged?

In the last instalment of this blog series, we looked at how technology can foster better understanding of patient cohorts, which in turn can support services to identify which patients have disengaged with or are at risk of disengaging with HIV care.

And while fast, accurate insight into patient cohorts helps services to better understand the problems they face, it isn’t the full solution. What (and how) services use this insight is also crucial.

At the BHIVA Annual Conference earlier this year, we heard how there are more people with HIV in England that have dropped out of care than remain undiagnosed . There are many factors that contribute to this issue and no quick fix solution. However, technology has an important role to play in helping services take control and reduce loss to follow up.

HIV testing plays an important role in helping people know their status and receive the treatment needed to live normal, healthy lives and reduce onward transmission. Initiatives, like National HIV Testing Week, work to raise awareness of the importance of regular testing to reduce the number of people living with undiagnosed HIV and promote early diagnosis. Bolstering efforts to reach 0 new transmissions by 2030, increased awareness of and access to PrEP, is also lowering the risk of HIV negative people contracting HIV from an infected partner.

The 2023 Inform Health User Conference will take place on Thursday 5th October at IET Birmingham: Austin Court. The free event will bring together thought leaders in sexual health and HIV from across the country; offering customers the opportunity to network with peers, share best practice, and learn more about Inform technology’s evolving role in delivering enhanced service provision.

We recently attended St Mary’s SARC annual conference. After the Covid hiatus, it was a great opportunity to meet inspiring professionals and survivors and learn more about the current and emerging issues facing SARC services.

After speaking with a range of professionals during the conference, here are four ways we think technology like Inform SARC will support enhanced SARC provision in the future…

Inform Health have once again demonstrated their commitment to cyber security by achieving a new Cyber Essentials Plus certification.

Cyber Essentials is a United Kingdom certification scheme designed to show that an organisation has reached a high level of protection in cyber security through annual assessments.