Public Summary

Telemedicine has the potential to improve access to HIV care both during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. However, implementation of telemedicine also has the potential to widen health disparities if measures are not taken to address access barriers faced by vulnerable popualtions. This study is designed to evaluate two approaches to prepare patients at the Ward 86 HIV clinic at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital for a phone visit. We will call patients prior to an upcoming phone visit with their primary care provider and randomly assign patients to either a simple visit reminder or a structured phone intervention to identify and address barriers to the phone visit, address care coordination needs, and identify agenda items to discuss during the phone visit. We will evaluate the effects of these pre-visit interventions on visit attendance, patient and provider satisfaction, and HIV viral suppression after 3 months.