Baton Rouge Clinic Pilots New HIV Treatment Model

When you're diagnosed with HIV, it can feel like your fate has been written. You have questions, such as whether you’ll live, how much treatment will cost and whether people will still love you. Nurse practioner Dionne Bell tries to answer some of those questions and offer options. Bell says patients are given their results and then immediately offered counseling. In the flurry of forms and blood tests, Bell and her colleagues at CareSouth Clinic, on Florida Boulevard in Baton Rouge, are starting to use a new model to help patients get into and remain in treatment. “If we have confirmatory testing and nothing else is needed and the patient is ready...they could be seen the same day,” says Bell. With a program called Rapid Start, which began in San Francisco General Hospital in 2013, the goal is to offer patients the treatment and counseling they need right away, from the first visit. According to medical professionals, that’s important. As soon as someone contracts HIV, cells start