Does the Provider’s HIV Experience Still Improve Patient Outcomes?

In the early days of AIDS, good clinical outcome was correlated with the experience of both the treating physician (ACC May 1 1996) and the hospital (JAMA 1989; 261:2975). Now, many of the parameters of care have changed: AIDS is no longer so new, hospitalizations are primarily for non–AIDS-related conditions, and a great deal of in-hospital care is provided by hospitalists rather than by more traditionally trained generalists and subspecialists. Does the treating physician’s HIV-related experience still make a difference?

Researchers collected outcomes data for all HIV-infected patients who were admitted to the general medicine services at any of six academic medical centers around the country between 2001 and 2003. Of the 1207 patients, 49…