Scaling Out and Scaling Up the Systems Analysis and Improvement Approach to Optimize the Hypertension Diagnosis and Care Cascade for HIV-infected Individuals

Detailed Summary

Undiagnosed and untreated hypertension is a main driver of cardiovascular disease, affecting disproportionately low and middle-income countries, where guidelines to screen and manage hypertension are poorly used. More than 13% of Mozambique adults are infected with HIV, and over 900,000 are on anti-retroviral therapy. HIV clinics are the only services within primary care providing continued care, and can be used to standardize and scale the hypertension care cascade. Hypertension affects 40% of Mozambican adults, and thus HIV and HTN often coexist in the same person. The investigators propose to use low-cost tools that improve service performance, promote routine hypertension diagnosis and management, and ameliorate flow through the hypertension cascade, thus improving patients outcomes. Building on a current project some districts of two provinces of central Mozambique, the investigators will establish scientific evidence on the effectiveness of a tool that uses cycles of evaluation and improvement of health system, to address the hypertension care cascade in HIV-infected people. The investigators will strengthen the framework currently in use (based on nurses) setting a novel modality delivered by district health supervisors, and will expand the geographic study area by adding 6 districts of one additional province in southern Mozambique (Maputo Province), to create a foundation for national scale-up. The Project planning phase (two years) will develop a multi-sectoral partnership of key stakeholders, establish national technical working groups with the participation of the provinces, and identify key facilitators and barriers that could affect uptake of the results, integration of high blood pressure and HIV services, scale-up to the entire country, and sustainability of the tested framework. Additionally, the investigators will i) conduct a six-months pilot study to assess feasibility and acceptability of the district supervisor-led intervention in one primary care facility; and, ii) redesign tools and standard operating procedures, as necessary. During the implementation phase (last three years) the investigators will deploy the district-based dissemination and implementation randomized trial in 18 health facilities - using an intervention that involves assessment, effectiveness evaluation, promotion of local uptake, implementation and maintenance - and determine the costs of the hypertension care cascade optimization, by estimating the total incremental costs.

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