A Quality Improvement Intervention to Inform Scale-Up of Integrated HIV-TB Services: Lessons Learned From KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa

INTRODUCTION: In South Africa, mortality rates among HIV-TB coinfected patients are among the highest in the world. The key to reducing mortality is integrating HIV-TB services, however, a generalizable implementation method and package of tested change ideas to guide the scale-up of integrated HIV-TB services are unavailable. We describe the implementation of a quality improvement (QI) intervention, health systems’ weaknesses, change ideas, and lessons learned in improving integrated HIV-TB services. METHODS: Between December 1, 2016, and December 31, 2018, 8 nurse supervisors overseeing 20 primary health care (PHC) clinics formed a learning collaborative to improve a set of HIV-TB process indicators. HIV-TB process indicators comprised: HIV testing services (HTS), TB screening among PHC clinic attendees, isoniazid preventive therapy (IPT) for eligible HIV patients, antiretroviral therapy (ART) for HIV-TB coinfected patients, and viral load (VL) testing at month 12. Routine HIV-TB process data were collected and analyzed. RESULTS: Key change interventions, generated by health care workers, included: patient-flow redesign, daily data quality checks; prior identification of patients eligible for IPT and VL testing. Between baseline and post-QI intervention, IPT initiation rates increased from 15.9% to 76.4% (P=.019), HTS increased from 84.8% to 94.5% (P=.110), TB screening increased from 76.2% to 85.2% (P=.040), and VL testing increased from 61.4% to 74.0% (P=.045). ART initiation decreased from 95.8% to 94.1% (P=.481). DISCUSSION: Although integrating HIV-TB services is standard guidance, existing process gaps to achieve integration can be closed using QI methods. QI interventions can rapidly improve the performance of processes, particularly if baseline performance is low. Improving data quality enhances the success of QI initiatives.