Supporting Access to HIV Care for Children and Youth during the COVID-19 Pandemic with Telemedicine and Rideshare

Background In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we scaled up telemedicine and rideshare services for clinic and laboratory visits for pediatric and adolescent patients with HIV. Setting HIV subspecialty program for patients aged 0-24 years at Children's National Hospital, Washington, DC. Methods Using the χ2 and Wilcoxon rank sum tests, we compared demographics, visit and laboratory data, and rideshare usage among patients who scheduled telemedicine at least once (telemedicine) versus those who never scheduled telemedicine (no-telemedicine) during the pandemic (April-September 2020). We compared the number and proportion of scheduled and completed clinic visits before the pandemic (April-September 2019) with those during the pandemic. Results We analyzed 178 pediatric and adolescent patients with HIV (median age 17.9 years, 89.3% Black, 48.9% male patients, 78.7% perinatally infected), of whom 70.2% and 28.6% used telemedicine and rideshare, respectively. Telemedicine patients scheduled more visits (236 vs 179, P Conclusion Most of the pediatric and adolescent patients with HIV used telemedicine and maintained HIV RNA