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O011 Hitting the bull’s-eye: Partner notification real-time metrics
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  1. Anatole Menon-Johansson1,
  2. Leigh Barlow2
  1. 1Guy’s & St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, London, England, UK
  2. 2Sydney Medical School, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

Abstract

Introduction Partner notification (PN) is a key but challenging service to deliver. The gold standard for PN confirmation is health care worker (HCW) verification. A cloud-based anonymous tool was developed to inform partners, support them to find a testing service and record when the HCW uses a unique code to reveal the sexually transmitted infection (STI), timing of PN initiation and closing the PN loop.

Objective To test the impact of the new tool on PN delivery.

Methods A live pilot commenced on 27th January 2016 and analysis of all index patients using the PN tool over 49 days was performed using spreadsheet pivot tables and formulas.

Results A total of 259 index patients across nine providers with nine different STIs were analysed. These index patients declared 421 contactable contacts and 162 (38%) were informed using the tool. A total of 96 (59%) partners contacted opened the link embedded in their text message or email and 30 (31%) were seen and tested by a HCW. A total of 13 STI testing centres received partners and the median (range) distance & time from PN initiation to HCW verification was 2.1 (0.0–12.3) kilometres & 63.8 (1–189.5) hours respectively

Discussion The PN tool has demonstrated that it is able to support partners to find a service and get tested expeditiously. The limited number of partners being informed is the rate limiting step and more work is required to develop strategies to enable effective PN initiation.

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