INTRODUCTION: The increasing number of @entity1 requiring @entity645 treatment in South Africa calls for efficient use of its @entity1 resources for health in order to ensure optimum treatment coverage and outcomes. This paper describes an innovative public-private partnership model which uses private sector doctors to treat public sector @entity1 and ascertains the model's ability to maintain treatment outcomes over time. METHODS: The study used a retrospective design based on the electronic records of @entity1 who were down-referred from government hospitals to selected private general medical practitioners (GPs) between November 2005 and October 2012. In total, 2535 unique @entity1 records from 40 GPs were reviewed. The survival functions for mortality and attrition were calculated. Cumulative incidence of mortality for different time cohorts (defined by year of treatment initiation) was also established. RESULTS: The median number of @entity1 per GP was 143 (IQR: 66-246). At the time of down-referral to private GPs, 13.8% of the @entity1 had @entity404 count <200 cell/mm3, this proportion reduced to 6.6% at 12 months and 4.1% at 48 months. Similarly, 88.4% of the @entity1 had suppressed viral load (defined as @entity2858 RNA <400 copies/ml) at 48 months. The @entity1 ' probability of survival at 12 and 48 months was 99.0% (95% CI: 98.4%-99.3%) and 89.0% (95% CI: 87.1%-90.0%) respectively. @entity1 retention at 48 months remained high at 94.3% (95% CI: 93.0%-95.7%). CONCLUSIONS: The study findings demonstrate the ability of the GPs to effectively maintain @entity1 treatment outcomes and potentially contribute to @entity645 treatment scale-up with the relevant support mechanism. The model demonstrates how an assisted private sector based programme can be effectively and efficiently used to either target specific health concerns, key populations or serve as a stop-gap measure to meet urgent health needs.

A South African Public-Private Partnership XXXX Treatment Model: Viability and Success Factors.

@entity1 :: ('9606', 'Species') :: ['human', 'patients', 'patient', 'Patient', 'people'] @entity404 :: ('920', 'Gene') :: ['CD4'] @entity645 :: ('57667', 'Species') :: ['HIV'] @entity2858 :: ('11676', 'Species') :: ['HIV-1']
@entity645 :: (57667,Species) :: ['HIV']
