The New England AIDS Education and Training Center (NEAETC) is using new funding from the Health Resources Services Administration (HRSA) to create specialized training programs for clinicians and medical students and to assist clinical practices with transformation efforts that will improve HIV/AIDS care.
NEAETC, part of UMass Medical School’s Commonwealth Medicine division, provides education, skills building and clinical mentoring to help health care providers diagnose and care for people living with HIV/AIDS, and to promote prevention strategies. It is one of eight regional education centers, and three national centers, all funded by HRSA.
The Interpersonal Education Project is a partnership to create an internal medicine primary training program for physicians (NEAETC and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center’s residency program, in conjunction with Fenway Health), and a nurse practitioner training program (NEAETC and Massachusetts General Hospital Institute of Healthcare Professions).
“We want to foster the interest and expertise in caring for people who are living with HIV, and focus on attracting and retaining care providers who want to do the work and are committed to doing the work,” said Vanessa Sasso, MSW, senior project director at NEAETC.
The Practice Transformation Project is a partnership between NEAETC and six community health centers in New England, most likely in Connecticut and Massachusetts, to: assess how well they’re caring for HIV patients; make a plan to correct the deficits; and transform the practices to ensure they are providing high-quality comprehensive care and treatment.
“We will be raising the bar for how they’re caring for people at risk for and living with HIV,” Sasso said.
