Featured Programs

Interprofessional Education Project

The PAETC’s Interprofessional Education Project (IPE) is housed at the Los Angeles Region AETC (LA AETC), which consists a collaboration between UCLA, USC, and Charles Drew University. IPE Project partners with 3 health sciences schools (CDU School of Nursing, USC School of Pharmacy, and UCLA School of Medicine (including the Department of Psychiatry) in Los Angeles to increase the number of healthcare practitioners who will diagnose, care for and treat PLWH within an interprofessional healthcare team using HIV didactics and community-based hands-on clinical learning experiences. Each of these schools manages its own HIV and IPE Curricula. By participating in the IPE experience, new healthcare professionals have a better understanding of interdisciplinary care team approaches in regards to HIV and related diseases.

Clinics participating in student rotations include:

• To Help Everyone Clinic/South Los Angeles
• John Wesley Community Health Clinic/Skid Row
• Bartz Altadona Clinic/Lancaster
• Alta-Med Clinic/East Los Angeles
• AIDS Project Los Angeles
• Northeast Valley Health Corporation/San Fernando Valley
• Rand Schrader Clinic/County-USC Hospital

And the end of the program, students are encouraged to obtain HIV-focused professional certifications, and success is measured by the number of students that go on to provide HIV care upon completion of the program.

Minority AIDS Initiative

The Minority AIDS Initiative (MAI) was established by Congress to improve access to high quality HIV services and reduce disparities in health outcomes among racial and ethnic minorities, including African Americans, Latinos, Asian and Pacific Islanders and American Indians. PAETC receives dedicated funding through the Ryan White grant to develop programs specifically to meet the needs of these highly-affected, vulnerable populations. Funds are used to:

• Train clinicians from highly-impacted racial and/or ethnic communities to become providers of quality HIV services
• Prepare providers serving HIV-infected and at risk persons of color to provide high quality and culturally competent care
• Increase the capacity of organizations (e.g., community health centers, correctional facilities, mental health facilities, substance abuse programs) to provide HIV testing, prevention and care services to highly impacted minority populations.

MAI-focused programs are LPS-based and are designed to address local needs. Contact your LPS for specific information about local initiatives.

US/Mexico Border Initiative

PAETC receives funds to address the HIV/AIDS epidemic along the US/Mexico border in California and Arizona. We collaborate with the Texas/Oklahoma and Mountain/Plains AETCs and the national centers as a member of the U.S.-Mexico Border AETC Steering Team (UMBAST). The U.S. Mexico border region experiences some of the worst health and economic disparities in the nation. If it were a state, it would rank last in access to healthcare, second in hepatitis deaths, third in diabetes deaths, and last in per capita income. Many border-focused training and capacity building programs integrate HIV with other health concerns of the region, including sexually-transmitted infections, substance abuse, mental health, hepatitis C infections, and domestic violence, often in collaboration with other federally-funded training centers. Border-focused programs are managed by the Arizona, UCLA and UC San Diego LPS.

Learn more about UMBAST

HIV Testing

A significant aspect of the National HIV/AIDS Strategy is to find, diagnose and link to care those who are HIV-infected but unaware of their status. To this end, local PAETC sites target medical settings (community health clinics, jails, hospitals etc.) to promote and support the expansion of routine HIV testing in accordance with current CDC recommendations. These free capacity building, technical assistance and training services provide:

• • Resources and references supporting the need for early identification and diagnosis of HIV infection.
  • Sample HIV testing policies, procedures, protocols, forms, patient education materials and other support tools to conduct routine HIV testing.

Information on the most up-to-date testing technologies and CDC-recommended algorithms

• Training, consultation, and technical assistance on all aspects of routine HIV testing, such as initiating the HIV testing discussion; laboratory procedures; billing issues; disclosing a positive result; workflow issues; and linkages to care and other services.