Fifty-five percent of these children are black, and 17 percent are Hispanic. Increasingly, HIV-infected children are referred for care from outside the Houston metropolitan area. We feel that by giving medical care to the parents and guardians of our pediatric patients, we can provide a truly family-centered approach. Since HIV affects the entire family, whether an individual is seropositive or not, we hope that this service will greatly enhance the health of each of the family members. This will significantly reduce the time spent traveling or waiting for appointments.
Child care is provided while the adults are being seen.
Because of the limited number of adult patients to whom this service is available, we foresee shorter waiting times and less pressured visits. Flexibility in scheduling appointments may be much greater than in other practices. Continuity of care should be enhanced since a single physician will be seeing the adult patients. We are excited about this new capability and, to our knowledge, it is the only pediatric HIV clinic in Texas which currently offers this service. All parents of HIV-infected children are offered referral to Internal Medicine and Obstetrics and Gynecology specialists with special expertise in adult HIV infection.