Baby Steps: Introducing Systematic HIV Screening in the ED

Emergency departments (EDs) have generally been slow to implement routine HIV testing, despite recommendations from an emergency-medicine task force and, more recently, the CDC. Now, researchers describe a new HIV testing program in a busy urban ED.

Trained staff members offered rapid HIV testing, using oral swabs, to ED patients aged 13 to 64 who were not known to be HIV-positive and did not require urgent medical intervention. Consistent with CDC recommendations, the program used an opt-out approach to screening and did not require written informed consent. Patients with positive rapid-test results were referred to the hospital’s Division of Infectious Diseases or to a local free clinic for confirmatory Western blot testing.

During a 3-mont…