• Workshop Proposals for Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program Meeting: Deadline April 17
• HRSA/HAB Awards $1.1 Billion for HIV/AIDS Care, Medications
• CAREWare in the Field: Solving the Challenge of Integrating Third-Party Data
• Multimedia Presentations Provide Overview of Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program
• TA Website of the Month: NQC Quality Academy
• New Resources in the TARGET Center TA Library
• Webcast on HIV and Violence among Women: April 23, 1:00 – 3:00 pm EST

OTHER NEWS

• CDC Releases 2006 HIV/AIDS Surveillance Report
• Kaiser Foundation Updates Fact Sheet on U.S. HIV/AIDS Epidemic
• Mental health AIDS” Addresses Impact of Distressing News on Clinicians and Patients

HRSA/HAB NEWS
Workshop Proposals for Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program Meeting: Deadline April 17
The 2008 Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program Meeting will be held August 25-28, 2008 in Washington, DC. The deadline to submit workshop proposals is April 17.

Workshops should focus on sharing ideas, best practices, and other how-to information that is beneficial for the Ryan White community. They should address one of the seven meeting tracks: 1) access to care; 2) administration/fiscal; 3) coordination and linkages; 4) cultural competency; 5) prevention/care continuum; 6) program development; and 7) quality, evaluation, and data. A workshop is 90-minutes long and should include time for questions and answers. If you submit a workshop that will only be 30, 45, or 60 minutes long, your workshop will be grouped with other workshops on a similar topic. A maximum of three speakers for panel workshops is suggested.

To submit an abstract for a workshop go to the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program Meeting website.

For background and ideas for workshops, take a look at the TARGET Center’s TA Library.

The TARGET Center also includes presentations from the 2006 grantee meeting, which can help in structuring ideas for the 2008 meeting. See those presentations.

HRSA/HAB Awards $1.1 Billion for HIV/AIDS Care, Medications
HRSA/HAB has awarded more than $1.1 billion to provide primary care, medications, and services for low-income and underinsured people living with HIV/AIDS. Funded under Part B of the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program, the grants are awarded to all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Also receiving grants are the U.S. Pacific Territories of American Samoa and Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, and the Associated Jurisdictions of the Republic of the Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, and Republic of Palau.

The majority of the funding, $774 million, supports state AIDS Drug Assistance Programs (ADAPs) that provide prescription medications for people living with HIV/AIDS. Part B awards also include formula base grants that can be used for home and community-based services, insurance continuation, ADAP assistance, HIV care consortia, and other direct services. Fourteen (14) states will also receive Emerging Community (EC) grants based on the number of AIDS cases over the most recent 5-year period.

To view a press release on the awards, including grant amounts.

CAREWare in the Field: Solving the Challenge of Integrating Third-Party Data
The Denver Part A grantee in Colorado has created a software interface that imports client-level data from non-CAREWare software directly into CAREWare. Better yet, they are ready to share it with other Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program grantees.

Since 2000, the Denver EMA, now TGA, has used CAREWare, a software application developed by HRSA/HAB to manage and monitor HIV care. As a TGA funding various subgrantees, the challenge Denver faced was how to collect data from subgrantees, especially hospitals and large providers that are not using CAREWare to collect their HIV client data. Various options were explored, including hiring a person to go to each subgrantee to enter data directly into CAREWare. Ultimately, the Denver TGA contracted with JProg, the developer of CAREWare, to create a third-party import module. The module template is easy to prepare and imports data as if it were keyed directly into CAREWare.

With the Denver Import, the Denver Mayor’s Office of HIV Resources now has access to all client-level data in a single unduplicated centralized database. Using a common encrypted unique record number (eURN), the TGA can now check client usage across providers and/or service categories.

Use of this module will also allow Denver to move from just using CAREWare as a reporting tool to using it as a clinical tool, where the care provided and services consumers access can be linked over time. The Denver TGA plans to add some quality management indicators, which will help subgrantees assess their clients’ level of care.

While the Denver Mayor’s Office of HIV Resources developed the third-party import module with its own funds, the module will be made available to all Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program grantees in the near future. Denver is also planning to conduct a workshop on use of the Denver Import process at 2008 Ryan White HIV/AIDS Grantee Meeting.

For more information on Denver’s third-party import module contact Phillip Byrne, IT System Administrator, Denver Environmental Health at 720/865-5388 or < phillip.byrne@denvergov.org >.

CAREWare and other data-related TA is available on the TARGET Center’s “Sources of TA” page.

Multimedia Presentations Provide Overview of Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program
Now available are a new podcast on Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program activities by HRSA/HAB’s Dr. Deborah Parham Hopson and slides from an update on the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program by Steven Young, Director of HRSA/HAB’s DTTA, that was presented to the President’s Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS and covered on C-SPAN. To access these presentations go to the home page of the TARGET Center at:

TA Website of the Month: NQC Quality Academy
The Quality Academy offers online tutorials on quality improvement in HIV care. Twenty modules are available addressing the following topic areas: introduction to quality; structuring a quality program; measurement and data; making improvements; and organizational change. Visit the TARGET Center to link to this site and other TA resources.

For other quality-related sources of TA go to:

To access the Quality Academy.

New Resources in the TARGET Center TA Library

Case Management Outcomes Tool
In 2005, HIV CARE Services (HCS) at the Ohio Department of Health (ODH) began the process of updating its statewide Case Management Outcome Measurement tool. The tool is part of HCS’ web-based Case Management Information System (CMIS). ODH, through its Office of Management Information Systems (OMIS), routinely produces, deploys, maintains, and updates software applications, including online data collection systems such as CMIS.

RARE Model of Rapid HIV Risk Assessment
A journal supplement describes the process by which HRSA/HAB helped grantees develop tools to make quantitative estimates on unmet HIV primary service needs. It presents methods, findings, and recommendations from the Care System Assessment Demonstration (CSAD) Project done in Palm Beach County, FL which targeted Black women. The journal supplement details the challenges of the CSAD Project's evaluation process and includes tables and figures. To access the journal on the RARE Model, type “rare” in the search field at the TARGET Center TA Library at:

Consumer Advisory Board Member Roles and Responsibilities
This tool, developed by the PWA Leadership Training Institute, addresses roles and responsibilities of Consumer Advisory Board (CAB) members and provides sample of typical duties of CAB members. It covers consumer advisory board operations, needs assessment and community input, and public relations/outreach. To access this tool, type “cab” in the search field at the TARGET Center TA Library.

Webcast on HIV and Violence among Women: April 23, 1:00 – 3:00 pm EST
A webcast, “The Intersection of HIV/AIDS and Violence among Women,” will take place Wednesday, April 23, 2008, 1:00 – 3:00 p.m. EST. This webcast will provide an opportunity for you to learn more about the relationship between HIV/AIDS and violence and how to help women practice safe and healthy behaviors that will prevent HIV transmission. The webcast is sponsored by the HRSA Office of Women's Health in collaboration with the HRSA Women's Health Coordinating Committee.

Prior online registration is required. A technical check of your computer will be conducted automatically during the registration process. To ensure that your computer meets all technical requirements, please register at least a day in advance of the webcast and be sure to use the same computer to register that you will use to attend the event. To register for the webcast go to:

An archived version of the webcast will be available a few days following the live event.

OTHER NEWS

CDC Releases 2006 HIV/AIDS Surveillance Report
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has released its annual surveillance report, which presents data for cases of HIV infection and AIDS for 2006 that were reported to CDC by June 2007. The “HIV/AIDS Surveillance Report-Cases of HIV Infection and AIDS in the United States and Dependent Areas, 2006 Vol. 18” contains estimated numbers of cases of HIV/AIDS from the 33 States and 5 dependent areas that have had confidential name-based HIV infection reporting since at least 2003. Although the total number of new cases of HIV/AIDS remained stable, HIV prevalence (i.e., the number of persons living with HIV/AIDS) increased steadily from 2003 through 2006. To view the report.

A fact sheet on the report is available at:

Kaiser Foundation Updates Fact Sheet on U.S. HIV/AIDS Epidemic
To help provide an overview of the latest HIV/AIDS data and trends, the Kaiser Family Foundation has updated its fact sheet on HIV/AIDS in the U.S., as well as several state indicators on its website, Statehealthfacts.org. The new data include estimates of the number of new AIDS cases, the cumulative number of AIDS cases, the number of people living with AIDS, the number of AIDS deaths, and the AIDS case rate (the number of reported cases in the year per 100,000 population). The fact sheet also provides an historical overview of the epidemic and describes how HIV/AIDS has affected racial and ethnic minorities, women, young people, and men who have sex with men.

The updated fact sheet is available at:

State-level breakdowns of the data are available at:

Mental health AIDS” Addresses Impact of Distressing News on Clinicians and Patients
The Spring 2008 issue of "mental health AIDS," a quarterly biopsychosocial research update on HIV and mental health, addresses the impact on clinicians and patients giving and getting distressing, HIV-related news. This issue is part of a two-part series.

Part 1 of this series tackled the terminology used to describe how clinicians are thought to be affected by their work with trauma survivors. It also summarized literature on recognizing and alleviating the dangers facing clinicians practicing trauma-related psychotherapy. Part 2 expands on the current state of qualitative and quantitative research in this area and offers emerging evidence for the positive consequences of this work for clinicians.

"mental health AIDS" is sponsored by the Center for Mental Health Services (CMHS) of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA, an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services) and is disseminated free-of-charge through the SAMHSA Web site in both PDF and HTML formats. View this issue.

The HAB Information E-mail is distributed biweekly by the HRSA/HAB Division of Training and Technical Assistance (DTTA). To subscribe or unsubscribe contact < pjones1@hrsa.gov>.