Special Projects of National Significance - Cooperative Agreements - The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) HIV/AIDS Bureau’s (HAB) Special Projects of National Significance (SPNS) initiative Supporting Interventions with Technical Assistance addresses critical barriers facing Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program (RWHAP)-funded sites seeking to adapt or replicate effective HIV care interventions to improve outcomes for clients, particularly individuals who are undiagnosed or out of care. NORC at the University of Chicago and its partners, AIDS United and Banyan Communications, will integrate implementation science, continuous evaluation, HIV capacity building, and strategic communications into a single delivery model that will provide tailored, precision technical assistance (TA) and access to modest startup funding to promote the adaptation and implementation of evidence-informed and evidence-based interventions at RWHAP sites, evaluate the effectiveness of that TA, and disseminate key findings and tools to the broader RWHAP community. Key barriers to intervention uptake include limited organizational capacity, workforce constraints, competing priorities, funding instability, and implementation challenges related to workflows, data use, staffing, partnerships, startup costs, and sustainability planning. To address these barriers, the NORC team will use a data-informed TA framework to deliver precision, tiered TA at no fewer than 20 RWHAP-funded sites, offering minimal, moderate, and intensive TA support depending on site need; available services will include access to resources and peer learning networks, startup cost and sustainability planning, implementation coaching, workflow reviews, performance monitoring, root-cause analysis, and site visits. Sites will be strategically matched within a pool of expert TA Coaches based on organizational capacity, implementation readiness, selected intervention, service delivery model, target populations, and coach subject matter expertise. NORC’s integrated, real-time evaluation will provide rapid feedback, measure implementation progress, and continuously inform TA refinement and decision-making. Grounded in the HAB Implementation Science framework and the Proctor Model, it will measure implementation and services outcomes and seek to understand: 1. How TA support was implemented, whether it was implemented with fidelity, and key differences by TA level, including optimal TA models and modalities; 2. TA effectiveness, including to what extent TA impacted integration and uptake of interventions at RWHAP sites; 3. How TA support improved services offered by sites; and 4. What were the costs, including fidelity to original spending plans, and establishing the minimum effective dose of TA and funding required. In parallel, the team’s continuous, multimedia dissemination strategy will translate implementation experience into peer learning, practical implementation resources, and evidence-informed tools to accelerate intervention adaptation, adoption, replication, and sustainability across the RWHAP community. Proposed interactive, multimedia products include interactive, digital implementation guides, implementation tools for practitioners (e.g. self-assessments, workflow examples, resource guides), site spotlight profiles, marketing sheets, and infographics. The NORC team’s data-driven TA is designed to accelerate implementation and sustain impact, ensuring sites receive appropriate support intensity matched to their needs. This structured approach will equip RWHAP sites with the tools, capabilities, and implementation experience needed to optimize care delivery, integrate emerging HIV treatment and prevention innovations, and sustain improvements over time, thereby advancing HIV outcomes and supporting long-term progress toward ending the HIV epidemic.
