1317. Online Simulation-Based Education to Improve Primary Care Providers’ Knowledge About Best Practices in HIV Preexposure Prophylaxis Care

Abstract

BackgroundPrimary care providers’ (PCPs’) lack of knowledge about and use of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) represent important barriers to its effective implementation on a national scale. To address these barriers, a collaboration of infectious diseases clinicians, patient advocates, and continuing medical education (CME) specialists developed and tested an educational intervention for PCPs to increase their knowledge about best practices for providing PrEP-related care.MethodsAn interactive, online CME-accredited simulation prompted PCPs to make clinical decisions about a hypothetical case of a 44-year-old African-American man seeking treatment for rectal gonorrhea who thus had indications for PrEP. The intervention included real-time educational feedback on clinical decisions and an opportunity to revisit suboptimal care decisions after feedback. PCPs were recruited via email and links on CME/patient advocacy websites and public health listservs. Outcomes included proportions of learners selecting correct answers prior to and after receiving feedback on their decisions.ResultsDuring October 2017–April 2018, 234 PCPs (88% physicians, 7% NP, 5% PA) completed the simulation for a total of 4,701 unique clinical decisions. Less than half (45%) of PCPs elicited a comprehensive sexual health history to begin the visit, which improved to 83% after feedback. Two-thirds (67%) of PCPs sought permission before asking about sexual behaviors, which increased to 82% after feedback. Nearly one-quarter of PCPs (24%) needed corrective action to nonjudgmentally ask about condom use. Almost all PCPs (91%) identified that PrEP was appropriate for the case patient on their first attempt. However, only 54% of PCPs initially selected all recommended baseline laboratory tests for PrEP; 75% did so after feedback. Of providers recommending PrEP, 29% selected regimens not FDA approved for this indication.ConclusionMany PCPs participating in an online simulation enacted clinical decisions that were inconsistent with best practices for providing PrEP-related care, but hypothetical care decisions improved after real-time educational feedback. Future studies to test the impact of this educational intervention on clinical practices are warranted.Disclosures D. Evans, Project Inform: Employee, Educational grant. A. McCord, Project Inform: Employee, Educational grant. D. Krakower, Gilead Sciences: Grant Investigator, Research grant.