Sustainable HIV Knowledge Management Project

The Challenge

In Nicaragua and Panama – like other countries in the Central American Region (CAR) – the HIV epidemic is concentrated in key populations, including men who have sex with other men, transgender women, and sex workers. To guarantee care and treatment for these populations toward achieving the UNAIDS’ 95-95-95 targets and thus ending the HIV epidemic in 2030, civil society organizations (CSOs) and ministries of health (MOHs) and their clinics need to disaggregate data on HIV cases by population type and improve data reporting systems for improved and informed decision-making.

Overview and Objectives

Under URC’s sub-award on the USAID-funded Sustainable HIV Knowledge Management, URC provided technical assistance in three areas:

Strengthening of HIV Health Information Systems: URC worked with MOHs, such as the Panamanian MOH, and health facilities to build capacity to monitor the progress and control of the HIV epidemic. URC used tools such as the Monitoring and Evaluation Capacity Assessment Tool (MECAT) to identify and analyze gaps within CAR countries’ HIV health management information systems (HIS).

Continuous Quality Improvement: URC provided technical assistance to the prime (local) organization, AIDS Education and Prevention Center (Centro para la Educación y Prevención del SIDA, CEPRESI), to develop and implement a quality management plan (QMP) to address CEPRESI’s administrative, financial, and technical functions. URC also worked with the MOHs and CSOs in managing HIV data quality.

HIV Knowledge Management (KM): URC promoted the use and participation of the Virtual Platform as part of the HIV KM community of practice through virtual courses and webinars that built HIV KM capacity across CAR.

Achievements

URC provided technical assistance to MOH health facilities across CAR countries. In Panama, URC focused support on nine out of the 16 antiretroviral therapy (ART) clinics. In each clinic, URC helped form quality improvement (QI) teams and train staff on how to implement the QI model and data review processes of the Continuum of Care cascade pillars.

As a result of URC’s capacity building, these facilities have seen an improvement in recording patient HIV information and the disaggregation of information by key population type.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the HIV cases identified in 2020 had not been registered in Panama’s HIV Health Information Systems database. Prior to URC’s technical assistance, in six of the nine clinics, only 106 of the 404 (26%) new HIV cases had been reported and registered. With URC’s technical assistance, the clinic teams have registered 388 cases (96%), and four clinics learned to disaggregate their data by key population type.

To support URC’s KM objective, URC reviewed and updated the content of three virtual courses. URC also has documented and shared two case studies highlighting the QI teams’ work at the ART clinics.