Simplifying HIV cohort monitoring--pharmacy stock records minimize resources necessary to determine retention in care.

: INTRODUCTION:: Monitoring of antiretroviral therapy (ART) delivery scale up is operationally complex, yet crucial to on-going programmatic success. Current cohort monitoring systems (paper or electronic) can be unwieldy. Pharmacy dispensing reports may provide a quick and costeffective method of determining retention in care. Methods: Reports of the number of individuals in ART care were generated quarterly over onecalendar year (July 2012 to June 2011) from the Access-based ART cohort database at a resource-poor clinic in South Africa (cohort report) and were compared to numbers in care generated from the electronic dispensing system used in the clinic over the same time period (dispensing system report). Estimated staff time taken to generate monthly cohort reports with both systems was compared. RESULTS:: The cohort reports at the end of September, December 2010, March and June 2011 showed a linear increase in numbers on therapy with 814, 875, 903 and 928 adults and children in care at the end of each quarter respectively. By dispensing system report the number of people per quarter on ART was 782, 880, 860 and 887. These numbers were within 5% of each other across all quarters. CONCLUSION:: Electronic dispensing system reports are easy to generate and comparable to clinic cohort reports when used to identify individuals collecting drug.