Ryan White Title III HIV Capacity Development and Planning Grants - Project Category: Infrastructure Development – Emergency Preparedness Applicant Address: 200 Varick Street, 9th Floor, New York, NY 10014 Project Director: Steve Phillips, Senior Director, Healthcare Operations Project Director Phone: 646-584-9782 Project Director Email: steve.phillips@projectrenewal.org Applicant Website: https://www.projectrenewal.org/ Funds Requested: $117,968.13 Project Renewal, Inc. (PRI) respectfully requests $117,968.13 in support of the Infrastructure Development – Emergency Preparedness activity. Funding will provide the capacity necessary to address critical gaps in emergency preparedness within PRI’s HIV Program. PRI is a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) and one of the largest providers of comprehensive services to individuals experiencing and at-risk for homelessness in New York City. Since 2000, PRI has operated our HIV Program supported by HRSA Ryan White funding, serving about 50 individuals living with HIV/AIDS at any given time. A majority of these individuals, like our general service population, manage serious mental illness and/or substance use disorder, and all live below the poverty line. HIV Program patients live in our shelters and supportive housing sites, as well as come to our clinics from the broader community across New York City. At present, formal emergency preparedness guidance does not exist specific to the HIV Program. Staff presently rely on general healthcare department policies, which themselves are outdated, and do not take into account the nuances of HIV Program operations and patient needs. Developing, implementing, and providing training around HIV Program standard operating procedures in the event of an emergency will notably reduce inefficiencies and the risk of missed appointments and prescriptions. The latter is particularly critical for improving positive HIV health outcomes, which depend on consistency in care and medication, as well as for successfully engaging our target population, which is frequently transient and more easily lost to follow-up than stably housed groups. The chief expected outcomes of the funded activity include the creation of an Emergency Preparedness Manual for the HIV Program, alongside a schedule of related, ongoing staff trainings, test exercises, and review periods. This grant will also result in the successful migration of electronic health record patient data from internal servers onto the eClinical Works cloud, mitigating the potential for tech-related downtime in an emergency. Secondary outcomes include improved emergency responsiveness resulting in better continuity of care and higher quality of care for our patients in the HIV Program.
