Outcome of HIV-infected patients transferred to a specialist inpatient unit.

The British HIV Association (BHIVA) recommends that specialist clinical networks are involved in care of HIV-positive patients admitted to district general hospitals (DGHs) and that transfer to a specialist HIV treatment centre is considered for each patient. We audited our experience of 29 patients transferred to our specialist inpatient unit over a two year period. Fifteen (52%) patients were known to be HIV-infected before admission to the referring hospital. Ten (71%) of 14 patients with newly diagnosed HIV had an opportunistic infection at transfer. At the referring hospital the time taken to diagnose HIV infection ranged from one to 26 days (median = 3.5). Only five patients (17%) were transferred by 72 hours of admission to the referring hospital. The duration of stay at our centre was 1–212 days (median = 15): seven patients (24%) required admission to the intensive care unit. Seven patients died; of these, three had newly diagnosed HIV infection. This audit demonstrates that sick HIV-infected pat...