Electronic Messaging for Gonorrhea and Chlamydia Test Result Notification, Improving Treatment and Patient Satisfaction

Details

• Alternative Title:
  Sex Transm Dis
• Personal Author:
  Rahman, Mohammad M. ; Johnson, Chaquetta ; Whyte, Martha ; Ewell, Joy ; Cope, Anna B. ; Chandler, Yolanda ; Bennett, Tammy S. ; Gray, Terri ; Gruber, DeAnn ; Peterman, Thomas A.
• Description:
  Background:
  
  Approximately 20% of chlamydia (CT) and gonorrhea (GC) cases in Louisiana are diagnosed at Parish Health Units (PHU). Patient notification of CT and GC test results involves nurses’ phone calls and letters to positive patients, which is time consuming and inefficient.
  
  Methods:
  
  In December 2018, electronic results notification was implemented in Caddo PHU using Chexout software to notify enrolled patients via text or email when test results are ready to view in a patient portal. We compared the timeliness of GC/CT results notification and treatment pre- (December 2017-November 2018) and post- (December 2018–November 2019) Chexout implementation. A random sample of patients were interviewed to assess acceptability.
  
  Results:
  
  During December 2018 - November 2019, 5,432 patients were tested for CT/GC, 3,924 (72%) enrolled in Chexout, and notifications were sent to 3,884 (99%). Among CT positives, 472/568 (83%) viewed results in the portal compared to 2,451/3,356 (73%) CT negatives. Among GC positives, 300/353 (85%) viewed results compared to 2,657/3,571 (74%) GC negatives. Treatment success for CT improved from 493/670 (74%) to 506/568 (89%) and for GC from 332/409 (81%) to 325/353 (92%). Mean time to treatment decreased for CT (13.4 to 10.7 days) and GC (11.3 to 9.2 days). Enrolled patients found Chexout notification satisfactory 168/169 (99%) and easy to use 130/141 (92%). Reasons for declining electronic notification included lack of personal cell phone 55/86 (64%) and confidentiality concerns 42/86 (49%).
  
  Conclusions:
  
  Electronic messaging decreased time to notification and increased treatment success. Nurses spent less time notifying patients leaving more time for patient care.
  
  
• Subjects:
  Article Chlamydia Chlamydia Infections Electronics Gonorrhea Humans Patient Satisfaction Results Notification Text Message
• Source:
  Sex Transm Dis. 49(4):257-261
• Pubmed ID:
  34813578
• Pubmed Central ID:
  PMC10214497
• Document Type:
  Journal Article
• Funding:
  CC999999/ImCDC/Intramural CDC HHSUnited States/ ; U38 OT000172/OT/OSTLTS CDC HHSUnited States/
• Volume:
  49
• Issue:
  4
• Collection(s):
  CDC Public Access
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha256:f046332b5c4bdde409cb49c1b1c7527e92b8ae03f1a88d82c2ef7ac50ff72739
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/128976/cdc_128976_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 76.33 KB ]