EmailHospital Admission Risk Program (HARP) HIV services
Background
The Hospital Admission Risk program (HARP) provides specialised client-centred medical care and care coordination in the community/ambulatory setting through an integrated response of hospital and community services.
The HARP-HIV pilot operated from 1 May 2009 to 30 June 2011 across four pilot sites: Barwon Health, Melbourne Health, Southern Health and St Vincent's.
The purpose of the pilot was to assess whether the HARP model of care could improve access to services for people with HIV/AIDS. HARP was chosen for its expertise in intensive care coordination across acute, primary and community settings and in managing people with chronic conditions and complex needs.
HARP-HIV pilot review
In 2011 the department reviewed the pilot and found that applying the HARP model of care for people with HIV/AIDS led to:
- improvements in the health status of discharged clients, who were more likely to be medication adherent, have achieved their care plan goals, have better mental health and improved health self-management skills
- greater access to mainstream and HIV specific services as a result of clients receiving care coordination and intensive case management. The greatest proportion of services received were community based and there was a significant increase in the number of clients with a general practitioner on discharge.
Ongoing HARP-HIV services
Based on the recommendations of the HARP-HIV review, the department will continue to support the delivery of HARP-HIV services at Barwon Health, Melbourne Health, Southern Health and St Vincent's and will be working with these services to improve the access of people living with HIV/AIDS to mainstream and specialised health and community services.
Information on how to refer to a HARP service is available at http://www.health.vic.gov.au/harp/services.htm#how.
