Rapid HIV Testing In Pharmacies

ASHLIN Management Group, Inc. (ASHLIN), was awarded a 2-year project by the Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to develop and evaluate a replicable and sustainable model for HIV testing and linkage to care in community pharmacies and/or retail clinics.

ASHLIN assembled a team of experts in the field to help assist in the process and development of this project and accomplished the objectives of this project by identifying and enrolling appropriate sites, training individuals from each site and maintaining records of HIV testing at each site, noting successes and challenges along the way and performing cost analysis on the various models of HIV testing that were utilized at the enrolled sites.

ASHLIN was contracted to enroll 24 sites over the course of the project. Two of these sites were unable to continue with their participation in the project before any tests were conducted. The remaining 22 sites conducted testing during the time in which they participated in the project. These sites included a combination of both rural and urban locations.

Sites utilized various models of HIV testing including some that had community pharmacists or nurses/nurse practitioners at the site perform the HIV testing to clients, some that worked with community based organizations (CBOs) and/or local health departments (HD) to provide the HIV testing at their pharmacy and/or retail clinic, and some that provided HIV testing through temporary employees such as pharmacy students and/or pharmacy residents. Read More