Review of Funding of Services to Support the Diagnosis and Screening of Blood-borne Viruses

The Department of Health (the Department) engaged HMA to conduct an independent review of Commonwealth funded services to support the screening and diagnosis of blood borne viruses. The Department funded services within the scope of the review are (1) Quality Assurance (QA) program for HCV and HIV tests utilising in-vitro devices (IVDs); (2) Quality Control (QC) and QA program for the Australian Red Cross Blood Service’s testing for HIV, HCV and HBV in fresh blood donations; (3) reference/confirmatory testing on samples that have tested positive, equivocal or indeterminate by routine testing platforms; and (4) performance monitoring of laboratories through data collection and analysis.

The review examined the currency, effectiveness and costs of in-scope services. Key tasks included:

• preparation of a situation analysis describing the in-scope programs
• desktop analysis of the regulatory environment including a review of relevant policies and procedures
• face-to-face and telephone consultation with key stakeholders including service providers, regulatory bodies and participating laboratories
• analysis and synthesis of findings including cost and benefit analysis for in-scope programs, and
• preparation of a final report.

The project commenced in January 2017 and was completed in June 2018.