Testing & Linkage Assistant (3 Positions)

AIDS Healthcare Foundation is a global not-for-profit organization that provides cutting-edge medicine and advocacy to more than 2.5 million patients in 48 countries globally, 14 of these countries being in Africa, and is headquartered in Los Angeles, California, USA.

Since 1987, AHF has cared for thousands of people living with HIV and AIDS worldwide. As we create and implement unparalleled programs in new communities globally, we expand the delivery of healthcare and influence over strategies with the sole aim of saving more lives.

Currently, AHF-Ethiopia is supporting 20 high-load public health facilities, one NGO, and one AHF-owned clinic providing standardized comprehensive HIV care and prevention service for more than 72,000 clients in Addis Ababa, Oromia, Amhara, and Sidama Regions. Besides, we provide free HIV testing and counseling services to More Than 100,000 individuals every year.

To deliver the said services effectively and efficiently, AHF-Ethiopia wishes to recruit a dynamic, skilled, committed, self-driven, and result-oriented professionals to fill required positions.

Position Summary:

The Testing & Linkage Assistant in AHF-Ethiopia Prevention team based at supported health facilities is responsible for the activities of HIV testing programs (ICT, Optimized PITC, VCT, HIVST and others as applicable) and related activities, including community-based initiatives. The employee will work in close collaboration with other Prevention Team, the Clinical Department, and Advocacy/Marketing staff to contribute to the achievement of the country’s HIV prevention and epidemic control plan. The employee will be assisting in supporting the implementation of HIV prevention, testing, linkage, and retention strategies, implementing & following planned activities that support improved access to HIV prevention in Ethiopia.

The Testing & Linkage Assistant will also implement targeted outreach and community testing in collaboration with the health facility. S/he also ensures an uninterrupted supply of commodities (HIV test kits, condoms, and others). S/he will oversee all relevant aspects in relation to planning, implementation, and monitoring of Testing, Counseling & Referral, and prevention education services for HIV negative & positive clients through involving site site-level Performance Monitoring Team and engaging in the Multi-Disciplinary Team.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities:

• Conduct baseline assessment in all HIV Prevention, testing, linkage, and retention, summarize the findings and develop a site support plan /Performance improvement plan, submit, and regularly implement the action points and monitor the outcome.
• Develop facility-specific targets of the year with health facilities for Testing (ICT, Optimized PITC, VCT), identification, ART initiation and linkage to care and treatment, and break them into months and weeks for ongoing monitoring and support.
• Perform the day-to-day identification of clients who should be supported in getting index testing services and ensure all receive the services.
• Ensure the implementation of the day-to-day counseling and testing activities and directly provide, when necessary, guidance from the Line Manager.
• Provide and ensure all index patients are offered index case testing services and documented on appropriate registers and formats (ICT Register, ICT follow-up tool…)
• Support the facility in conducting elicitation of index client sexual partners, children, and siblings with a focus on supporting adult index patients are eliciting their sexual partners and documenting on appropriate formats and registers.
• Support attachment and use of the updated ICT follow-up tool insertion to all patient charts and update regularly
• Update and ensure daily updating of the ICT follow-up tool based on index patients and their contact information at the facility. This will include follow-up with transcription of index patients and their contact information from another tool to the ICT follow-up tool and updating on the ICT Performance Improvement tool.
• Support the facility to identify all patients on treatment with their pool of elicited contacts by risk category, with their test status (Know HIV Positive, Documented Negative, and untested contacts as a master list.
• Support the facility to establish individual-level patient master lists using Excel / Access that are kept updated and used for the provision of individual-level responses.
• Support the facility in implementing a pre-test elicitation strategy at service delivery points, and ensure those newly diagnosed patients are well linked to the ART clinic with elicited contacts.
• Ensure the availability of different tools and registers at SDPs to capture all the elicited contacts from SDPs are being documented regularly.
• Provide support to the facilities to implement peer-based support to support those existing clients who did not and test their sexual partners to improve index testing.
• Support the facility in implementing strategies on how to test all those elicited contacts but not yet tested to improve the ICT Performance.
• Identify those index patients based on their preference for testing (weekend, community level/home-based) and arrange community-based testing and weekend testing based on their preferences.
• Identify any training needs of ICT at ART, PMTCT, and Major SDPs, and work with the prevention team at the head office for the training of the staff.
• Closely monitor the index testing performances and ensure all the different improvement initiatives are monitored and different providers and management are getting the performance on a weekly basis.
• Ensure continuous HIV Risk Screening Tool (HRST) availability and optimal utilization, including collection of monthly HRST Cascade performance, analysis on site, develop a performance improvement plan by SDP, and give it to the focal person, identify targeted testing using HRST orientation gaps at the facility.
• Ensure availability and proper utilization of non-ART started patients’ follow-up forms at the facility, and those patients are followed till they start ART and come for their second visit.
• Utilize the Longitudinal newly diagnosed HIV-positive patient linkage and retention status tracking tool at the facility, analyze the data, and present it to the site MDT/PMT team.
• Ensure daily/regular tracing and tracking of the final linkage status of HIV-positive clients who were referred to other health facilities, declined, or lost before ART started… at the facility.
• Support missed appointments and interrupted treatment, timely identification, and tracking with proper documentation on the appropriate registration book at the facility.
• Assists in other activities, including ART service provision, linkage, and retention, adherence support, etc., to fill gaps whenever there is a demand from the AHF Ethiopia team
• Analyze facility performance by cascade and from target on a weekly basis, identify the reason for any performance gap, and present at the weekly/Monthly site level MDT/PMT.

Education, Qualification, and Experience

• Minimum Degree in Clinical Nursing from a recognized institution; having a higher qualification or public health, psychological education, or a social science background is an added advantage.
• At least three years’ experience in HIV program service delivery, with particular emphasis on HIV counseling, in a similar NGO or developmental agency
• Training and skills in ICT and updated HTS would be a necessity; additional training on PMTCT, ART, TB/HIV, Nutrition in HIV… is an advantage.
• Further education in HIV related courses is an advantage.
• Proficient in basic computer programs, including MS Word, Excel, PowerPoint, internet skills, and knowledge of databases
• Excellent written, verbal, and inter-personal communication skills with good command of English & Amharic languages
• Effective time management and meeting deadlines, maintaining quality
• Must be highly organized and demonstrate multi-tasking ability
• Flexible, proactive, and able to organize work independently with minimum supervision
• Excellent interpersonal interaction skills and keen to work with a good team spirit