Why AETC
Multidisciplinary
The AETC Group, with more than 20 years of experience, combines the intellectual talents of leading clinicians, educators, researchers, and instructional designers to form multidisciplinary project teams. This results are innovative, comprehensive, and targeted capacity development activities that meet a region’s specific needs.
Academic affiliation
Hosted by the University of California San Francisco, The AETC Group offers access to hundreds of faculty, fellows, and technical specialists in international health and education. The AETC Group also builds on more than two decades of experience gained from the 11 university-affiliated AIDS Education and Training Centers, and 4 national centers, supported by the US government.
Local, Regional & Global presence
The AETC Group supports a network of individuals and organizations working in the Pacific region of the US, Southern and Eastern Africa, India, Latin America, and the Caribbean Region. The AETC Group has a developed network of trainers and healthcare providers
Emphasis on quality improvement
The AETC Group applies the principles of quality improvement to all of its work. Throughout the project cycle, The AETC Group leads staff and partners through a facilitated reflection on areas for improvement and helps to address these areas by finding appropriate, relevant solutions.
Experience with diverse donors and partners
The AETC Group has extensive experience working with U.S. government partners from national, regional and international programs, including the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), CA State Office of AIDS, and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), toward better human resources for health and achievement of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR).
Areas of Expertise
- HIV/AIDS curriculum development
- Targeted training approaches (multiple levels)
- Population-specific training (i.e.- minorities, Native American, transgender, MSMs, pregnant women, youth, other high risk groups)
- HIV prevention strategies (with HIV+ patients, or at-risk groups)
State, Regional, and International Consultants
The AETC Group has more than twenty years experience in planning, developing, and implementing projects focused on prevention, care, and treatment of infectious diseases, particularly HIV and opportunistic co-infections such as tuberculosis (TB) and sexually transmitted infections.
Prevention
The AETC Group’s prevention work in HIV and infectious diseases centers on two prevention strategies:
- training health care workers in infection control,
- positive prevention.
Training health care professionals in proper infection control practices helps to staunch the spread of infectious disease in the health care setting. The AETC Group has partnered to create several curricula on the fundamentals of infection control practices for health care professionals, and many others incorporate instruction on these measures into their course content. Curricula aim to enhance the skills of health care professionals on prophylactic measures, such as safe sanitation and use of equipment, and setting up systems that mitigate infectious disease transmission and facilitate patient health.
The AETC Group and its partners also develop Positive Prevention strategies to promote healthy living and reduction in risk behaviors among people living with HIV. These prevention efforts aim to diminish the spread of HIV to sex partners, injection drug use partners, and infants born to HIV-infected mothers, as well as protect the health of infected individuals. The AETC Group’s international work has applied three basic models for PP—provider-based, specialist-based, and peer-based—each of which can be adapted to local settings. I-TECH works with each country and clinical setting to refine and tailor technical assistance materials and plans, and then assists these sites with implementing programs based on country or local plans.
Care and Treatment of Infectious Diseases
The AETC Group provides technical assistance on the clinical care and treatment of HIV and related opportunistic infections on a continuum that includes direct patient service delivery, to training and mentoring health care workers.
The AETC Group has experience in case management for patients who are beginning ART. Case management is a way to proactively identify those who may experience challenges adhering to their medications, and prevent their being “lost-to-follow-up” by designing an individualized network of support, helmed by a case manager, to help them meet their needs and stay on course with their treatment. Not only does this process improve patient outcomes, but it helps to reduce ART medication resistance.