HIV & Aging

Adherence to antiretroviral (ARV) therapy is essential for viral suppression of HIV, but adherence problems may not be identified until viral load is measured months later. Amida Care, a Medicaid Special Needs Plan for people living with or at risk for HIV, has developed an innovative model using real-time pharmacy claims data to identify individuals who fail to pick up their ARV prescriptions. This approach allows Amida Care to follow up with these individuals immediately to encourage them to stay on their medication. Their care model includes three progressively intensive levels of intervention.

With a grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Amida Care is expanding its program to serve more plan members. As part of the Amida Care-Brookdale Research Collaborative, the Brookdale Center for Healthy Aging is partnering with Amida Care on this important work in developing the intervention models and conducting process evaluations (examining the fidelity of project deployment) as well as outcome evaluations (determining the efficacy of the adherence interventions). The implications of the study could be applied to older adults with chronic conditions who require ongoing medications.

Dr. Jerome Ernst, chief medical officer at Amida Care, and Dr. Mark Brennan-Ing, director of research and evaluation at Brookdale, are the Co-Principal Investigators on this study.