Thursday, April 3, 2025
4/3/2025
Regional AIDS Education and Training Centers Program - Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) proposes to lead the Southeast AIDS Education and Training Center (SE AETC). The Southeast (SE) has a population of over 67 million people living in eight states including Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee. According to the CDC, an estimated 323,100 people in the SE live with HIV (both diagnosed and undiagnosed), and the average rate of new diagnoses in 2021 was 16.8 per 100,000 population. VUMC will build upon successful interventions and introduce innovative programs, organized as Foundations of HIV (FH), Capability and Expertise Expansion (CEE), Practice Transformation (PT), HIV Interprofessional Education (IPE), Minority AIDS Initiative (MAI), and Ending the HIV Epidemic (EHE) in the US Initiatives. VUMC will build upon relationships established over the past nine years as the SE AETC Central Office (CO). VUMC has a growing reach including 81,970 trainees representing priority populations in diverse organizations. This network provides opportunities for strategic partnership with organizations such as health departments, Primary Care Associations (PCAs), Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program (RWHAP)-funded entities, EHE-funded jurisdictions, Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs), Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs), Health Professional Programs (HPPs), and other Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA)-funded groups. For example, an existing partnership with the United Southern and Eastern Tribes (USET) will continue to be vital to reach and support tribal health clinics. Activities will be directed at priority providers throughout the SE through interactive case-based sessions, small group workshops, online self-paced learning, and other innovative adult learning approaches for busy providers (e.g., the text/email-based microlearning tool QuizTime). VUMC will increase HIV workforce training through clinical skills development via in-person conferences and workshops, clinical consultations, preceptorships, and intensive HIV fellowships and academies. An innovative structure will be used to organize content expertise and training partners into distinct communities of practice (CoP) focused on achieving major program goals and activities. Evaluation strategies to measure training acceptability and outcomes will be applied through various methods, based on quantitative and qualitative data, and adaptive to HRSA requirements and requests. Use of the event registration and evaluation database developed by VUMC (Measuring Outcomes Across the Southeast [moXse]) allows real-time data tracking and marketing of training events to health professionals from a variety of backgrounds. Local partners (LPs) will collaborate with the CO in assessing need, providing training, collecting evaluation data, and facilitating collaboration with state and regional public health initiatives. LPs will execute local workplans and collaborate with pertinent organizations (e.g., their states RWHAP funded entities). The University of Alabama at Birmingham, University of Miami, University of Florida, Morehouse School of Medicine, University of Kentucky, University of Mississippi Medical Center, University of North Carolina, Duke University (MAI), and University of South Carolina will serve as LPs to expand reach and partnership to include both urban and rural areas of each state. VUMC will serve as both the CO and the LP for TN. Specific initiatives will be supported by LPs based on expertise and opportunities; for example, Morehouse School of Medicine and Duke University will lead MAI efforts and work with MSIs to integrate HIV education into HPP curricula. In summary, VUMC seeks to lead the SE AETC to continue to innovate HIV training and technical assistance across an essential US region with strong partnerships and collaborations.
HHS’ Tracking Accountability in Government Grants System (TAGGS) website provides access to detailed descriptions of grants, loans, aggregated direct payments and other types of financial assistance awarded by the HHS Operating Divisions (OPDIVs) and the Office of the Secretary Staff Divisions (STAFFDIVs).