Addressing Challenges in Scaling up TB and HIV Treatment Integration in Public Health Settings in South Africa

The primary aim of this study is to test the effectiveness of a peer mentor-led, quality-improvement model of service delivery of integrated HIV-TB treatment on mortality in HIV-TB co-infected patients treated in rural primary health care clinics in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa

Specific Objectives (i) To determine the impact of a QI-mediated HIV-TB service integration on patient mortality. All patients that access services in intervention and control clinics, via either the TB entry point or via the HIV entry point will be tracked during clinic follow-up visits or, through a community care giver, and will have their vital status ascertained 12 months after clinic randomization.

(ii) To determine the effectiveness of peer-led Quality Improvement (QI) to integrate HIV-TB services. The effect, on HIV-TB integrated processes of care, of the deployment of a QI approach (systems view, data driven decision making, culture of continuous improvement, trained peer mentors) to ensure uniform implementation of an essential package of evidence based HIV-TB interventions that support HIV-TB integration. The impact on clinical outcomes of using QI methods to implement integrated HIV and TB management will be assessed using the following indicators: Time to ART initiation among HIV infected TB suspects and cases; HIV testing rates in TB patients; Number of HIV-TB co-infected patients receiving co-treatment for TB and HIV at the same facility; Number of patients infected with HIV or TB that are retained in care at 12 months; Indicators of treatment adherence such as - number of HIV patients that are virologically suppressed at 12 months and TB treatment outcomes; Hospitalisation rates among patients receiving co-treatment for TB and HIV.

(iii) To identify clinic-level factors that impact on integrated HIV-TB services. Understanding the context (environmental, social and political factors) in which we are working is essential to identifying factors that promote or inhibit the implementation of the intervention. We will use the COACH tool (Context Assessment for Community Health) [8] to collect data and assess the organizational context and the influence of factors such as organizational culture, leadership, resources and HCWs remuneration etc. on the intervention

(iv) To determine the cost-effectiveness of implementing HIV-TB services using Quality Improvement methodology (Intervention Clinics) versus the base-case of implementing HIV-TB services independently, through a within-trial approach using both health service (e.g. training, remuneration) and patient costs (e.g. travel, opportunity costs) as inputs. We will also calculate total intervention costs to assess its affordability and explore cost-effectiveness under various scenarios (e.g. different TB-HIV co-infection rates) using decision analytical modeling.