Between Promise & Performance: X-Pres

Promise & Performance: Leadership | Condom Distribution | HIV Testing | X-Pres X-Pres One of the most important things the DC Department of Health HIV/AIDS Administration (HAA) does is to make sure that the people living with HIV in DC get the services they need. In order to do that, HAA needs to make sure that the agencies and organizations they give money to actually provide the services they say they are providing. HAA is supposed to accomplish this through site visits, monthly reports, and by tracking the data entered into X-Pres. X-Pres is a computer program that (if it is working) allows organizations that receive HAA funds to enter information about their clients and the services they are providing. The Promise: Over the years HAA has spent millions on a computer system that is supposed to accurately track the services being provided to people living with HIV/AIDS in the District. The Performance: X-Pres is currently in a state of failure. Last month I asked you to send me stories about your experience with X-pres and boy, did you. Here is what I learned. Agencies are not entering data into X-Pres because they have folks who have been waiting months to get trained. Those who have received training in the past year were very critical of the training they received. Agencies are not entering data into X-Pres because they have been waiting (in some cases six months or longer) for usable user-id's and passwords Most agencies that can enter data are not entering accurate information because they have one or more grant numbers that haven't been updated in the X-Pres system. So there is NO way that you can tell whether or not an agency is providing services under current HAA grants The state of this system is shameful. What is more shameful, however, is that these problems have been brought to the attention of HAA time and time again; month after month; to no avail. I personally sent an e-mail back in May, hoping that the situation could be fixed and it wouldn't be necessary to blog about this. I'm still waiting to here back. With so many problems with X-pres it is impossible to produce any useable data. What are the demographics of people living with HIV who access services in the District? Which local AIDS Service Organizations did not meet their goals in providing service last month? Are women less likely than men to access health services in DC? How many people living with HIV accessed any services at all in the past three months? If X-pres was working properly, getting this kind of data pulled would be a simple task, and it would be incredibly useful information for HAA and for our Ryan White Planning Council. Once again, however, this is not the case.