• Early Registration for 2008 Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program Meeting: May 9 Deadline
• Report Examines State AIDS Drug Assistance Programs
• Grantee Basics Outlines Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program Fundamentals
• Recent Enhancements to HAB Website
• Workshop on Psychiatric Management of Patients with HIV: May 5, Washington, DC
• Face of Ryan White: Ohio Department of Health Case Management Outcome Measurement Tool
• HRSA Launches Patient Safety and Clinical Pharmacy Services Collaborative

OTHER NEWS

• Annual TPAN HIV Drug Guide Now Available
• Study Links Racial/Ethnic Disparities to Physician Practice Resources

HRSA/HAB NEWS
Early Registration for 2008 Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program Meeting: May 9 Deadline
The 2008 Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program Meeting will be held August 25-28, 2008 in Washington, DC. The deadline for early registration of $425 is May 9. After May 9, regular registration is $525. View more information on the meeting.

Report Examines State AIDS Drug Assistance Programs
A new report details important developments in the AIDS Drug Assistance Programs (ADAPs) over the past year. For the first time in more than a decade, ADAP waiting lists across the U.S. were nearly eliminated, the result of a combination of factors including increased funding from State budgets and pharmaceutical drug rebate programs in recent years, and changes made to the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program during its last reauthorization. Ryan White reauthorization instituted minimum drug formulary requirement for antiretrovirals for ADAPs.

These developments and other findings are discussed in the 12th annual “National ADAP Monitoring Project Report,” a project of the Kaiser Family Foundation and the National Alliance of State and Territorial AIDS Directors (NASTAD). The report is based on a comprehensive survey of ADAPs in the 50 States, the District of Columbia, Territories, and associated Jurisdictions. It documents new developments and challenges facing ADAPs, assesses key trends over time, and provides the latest data on the status of these programs.

Survey highlights include:

• The ADAP client caseload reached its highest level since the program’s inception, with about 146,000 enrolled in 2007 and 102,000 served in the month of June 2007 alone.
• Most clients are low-income, with more than four in 10 having incomes at or below 100 percent of the Federal Poverty Level. Approximately two-thirds of clients are people of color (33 percent are African American and 26 percent Hispanic).
• The total ADAP budget for fiscal year 2007 was $1.4 billion. In June 2007, more than $100 million was spent on HIV prescription drugs.
• Most ADAP clients are concentrated in States with the highest numbers of people living with HIV/AIDS: California, New York, Texas, Florida, and Pennsylvania accounted for half (51 percent) of total enrollment in June 2007.
• In March 2008, Montana was the only State that had a waiting list in place (with three people on the list), compared to March 2007, when four States had waiting lists with a total of 571 people.

A webcast from a forum on the report.

Grantee Basics Outlines Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program Fundamentals
A new webpage on grantee basics for Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program-funded agencies is now on the TARGET Center. Listed are: web links to HHS clinical guidelines; protocols and clinical practices for implementing guidelines (covering primary care, nutrition, hepatitis, and other topics); and resources, from policies to quality/performance measures, to guide grantees in fulfilling their grant requirements.

Recent Enhancements to HAB Website
Several additions and updates have been made to the HAB website as part of ongoing work to update the site.

Highlights include:

Grantee Contacts for Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program grantees for Parts A through F at:

Please note, Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program grantee websites and State profiles are is also available from the TARGET Center’s Ryan White Community webpage.

An updated Global HIV/AIDS Program summary.

The legislative text of the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Treatment Modernization Act of 2006 is now available at:

Workshop on Psychiatric Management of Patients with HIV: May 5, Washington, DC
The Pennsylvania/Mid-Atlantic AETC will hold a workshop addressing the psychiatric management of patients with HIV/AIDS in Washington, DC on May 5 from 1:00 to 6:00 pm ET. The workshop will bring together leading experts in HIV psychiatry from around the country due to the simultaneous occurrence of the 2008 American Psychiatric Association Meeting being held in Washington, DC at the same time. This opportunity is available to primary care providers, mental health professionals, substance abuse treatment professionals, HIV clinicians, nurses, case managers and other members of the HIV treatment team. The workshop is organized in collaboration with the American Psychiatric Association, Office of HIV Psychiatry and the School of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry, Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic at the University of Pittsburgh. For information, call 412/624-1895 or look under “What’s New” at the TARGET Center .

Face of Ryan White: Ohio Department of Health Case Management Outcome Measurement Tool
In 2005, HIV CARE Services at the Ohio Department of Health (ODH) began the process of updating its statewide Case Management Outcome Measurement tool, part of a 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. See the Case Management Outcome Measures Tool in the TARGET Center at:

Interested in getting your program featured as a Face of Ryan White? Submit a photo and a brief summary of a resource (e.g. protocol, program innovation) from which other Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program grantees could benefit. Submit to:

HRSA Launches Patient Safety and Clinical Pharmacy Services Collaborative
The goal of HRSA’s Patient Safety and Clinical Pharmacy Services Collaborative (PSPC) is to ensure that patient care delivered by safety-net organizations becomes the safest and best in the Nation. The Collaborative will consist of teams of providers from multiple organizations who commit to learning, testing, and implementing specific leading practices designed to improve: 1) patient safety; 2) effective use of clinical pharmacy services; and 3) patient health outcomes. The goal is to replicate these leading practices across HRSA-funded health care providers and their partners using a collaborative model based on the methodology from the Institute for Health Care Improvement. Full implementation of the Collaborative begins in early May 2008 when the participation package for the team enrollment process will become available. In August 2008, the first Learning Session will convene in the Washington, D.C. area for participating teams.

Collaborative teams will be comprised of clinicians and staff from community-based providers caring for the populations who rely on the health care safety-net. The teams will be defined by a community population they together serve and the focus will be to bring all organizations on a given team in alignment and action around continuity of care related to that population as it moves across those organizations (e.g., inpatient to outpatient). The joint goals of the teams’ work will be improving patient safety, clinical pharmacy services, and clinical outcomes in the outpatient arena.

A State Leadership and Partnering Meeting of HRSA’s Patient Safety and Clinical Pharmacy Services Collaborative will take place on May 1, 2008. This meeting will be a prime opportunity for State leaders to learn about the Collaborative and how their organizations can support and encourage local teams from their State to become active and successful participants in the Collaborative. HRSA is asking State leaders to help inform, mobilize, and recruit local teams. Numerous State-level partners such as State Primary Care Associations, State Hospital Associations, State Offices of Rural Health, Local or Sub-State Conversion Foundations, State Primary Care Offices, State Pharmacy Associations, Quality Improvement Organizations, Poison Control Centers, and HIV/AIDS service organizations have been invited. State-level leaders are being encouraged to join forces with other State partners to ensure broad representation in the Collaborative by teams from communities in their State.

More information on the Collaborative is available.

OTHER NEWS

Annual TPAN HIV Drug Guide Now Available
The Test Positive Aware Network (TPAN) has released its annual HIV Drug Guide, which provides comprehensive information on available drugs. The Guide includes information on drug class, dosing, food restrictions, side effects, pricing, tips for taking the drug, and a summary of current DHHS treatment guidelines. To view the Guide.

Study Links Racial/Ethnic Disparities to Physician Practice Resources
Primary care physicians treating a disproportionate share of black and Latino patients typically earn less, see more patients, provide more charity care, treat more Medicaid patients and receive lower private insurance payments, according to a national study funded by the Commonwealth Fund and published in the journal “Health Affairs.”

Racial and ethnic disparities in primary health care likely reflect the aggregate socioeconomic composition of a physician's patient panels as well as differences in individual patients' characteristics. Data indicate that physicians in high-minority practices depend more on Medicaid, receive lower private insurance reimbursements, and have lower incomes. These limited resources help explain the greater quality-related difficulties in delivering care reported by these physicians, such as coordination of care, ability to spend adequate time with patients during office visits, and obtaining specialty care.

To view the article.

In addition to the resources listed above, don’t forget to check out these other HAB resources, which are updated regularly.
HAB Web Site < http://hab.hrsa.gov >
TARGET Center, Central Source for Ryan White TA

"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>.