UCLA sets up interactive needlestick web site

In conjunction with release of new guidelines for HIV post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is taking its educational efforts on line. With funding from the CDC, the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) department of emergency medicine has developed an interactive web site (www.needlestick.mednet.ucla.edu).

The site functions as an electronic medical record, guiding health care providers in selecting laboratory tests and treatments. Once the case is complete, the health care workers may print case-specific aftercare instructions to be given to the exposed worker and included in the medical record. Each case is managed anonymously. The free site does not collect identifying information about the exposed health care worker or the source of the body fluid.

"The provider simply must answer the questions in good faith and carefully consider the recommendations," says David Schriger, MD, a UCLA professor of emergency medicine who led development of the site. n