Participants: David, Herman, Betty, Barbara Aranda-Naranjo, Thelma, Luisa, Yolanda, Sandi, Rosana, Alisa, Terry, Ray, Tony, Charles, Marisa Olivares, Joao, Barbara & Tony, Steve, Kerri, and Michael

a. Valley AIDS Council – Completed data training on Friday with local evaluation team. Also saw first patients on Friday – now ready to go. New director on board and Thelma will remain on as a consultant. New director is Marisa Olivares.

b. Centro de Salud Familiar La Fe – Met with John to decide on local evaluation instruments, hope to get them finalized by end of this week. Two RN’s in training at AIDS Project LA this week. Still recruiting Social Work position. No applicants for Registered Dietician which may be difficult to fill. Barbara provided a contact number for Dilla Hayes who may be able to recruit a Corp person to apply for the position.

c. Camino de Vida Center for HIV – all promotores are certified for HIV-testing, counseling and Orasure. Hired data manager to begin next week, responsible for all data entry. Promotores begin outreach on Thursday this week. Joao has MIS designed and on paper which will be implemented by data manager. They are ready to go. Barbara asked Joao to send her, David and Robyn copy of project flow chart.

d. Arizona Border HIV/AIDS Care Project – Steve asking SIA clients to participate in project (baseline and treatment and care information). 75 SIA clients meet criteria to participate in the study. A meeting set for 3/2/01 with all collaborating projects to review agreements, and instruments. Have begun outreach initiative in Yuma. AETC is conducting needs assessment for training and will schedule training at later date. Barbara Estrada is receiving data from Steve which she will review for quality assurance. New START coalition in Arizona will advocate for all behavioral, mental health and care issues for rural communities.

e. San Ysidro Health Center – Data training today following local monthly meeting. Began gathering baseline data, first potential client came in on Friday. Focus groups with Dr. Organista last week, one women and one gay men's group. Held at San Ysidro. Incentive provided was $25 food voucher. Used flyers and signed up folks on first come and first serve. Easy to organize with good response. Had 8 men and 9 women participants. Have spent most of month working with collaborative partners on system for data collection.

a. Client Satisfaction – David suggested using four items suggested by George Huba. Steve asked when will the module be administered. David said annually. Suggested local projects could decided to administer locally every six months but that is their choice. Should be posted by Friday of this week.

b. John Wiebe - status of translation of data instruments and code book (time line and costs) John’s memo was read to all participants. Rosana asked if group would be able to give feedback. Group said it would be important to read the translations prior to implementation. David said we would post the translations to the web page and ask for a sub-committee to review the transcriptions. Beatrice Vera for NM, Rosana, Steve, Tony, Marisa & Yolanda will serve on committee. Need e-mail for Chris Johnson and other data people. John said Dr. Ford estimates about $300-400 dollars for translation of instruments and code book. Expects they will meet 30-day window. Barbara asked David if future modules will be translated and he advised in the affirmative. Currently 4 modules ready for translation and code book. Will need to work with Dr. Ford to translate future instruments. Barbara advised John that committee will review the final translation and provide some feedback.

c. Posting of Logic Model for each site on Web page – Betty requested that each project submit the latest version of their logic model for posting on the web page. New Mexico has a web site and Alisa said San Diego will get one up in about one month as well as El Paso. Mail URL to David so that we can link them from the Evaluacion web site. Barbara would like to see each project’s abstract posted on the web page as well. All sites are to e-mail their proposal abstract to David.

US/Mexico Border Health abstract is completed and posted on web page. APHA: El Paso not sure they are attending so did not submit an abstract. Rosana said Mari submitted an abstract which will be resubmitted by Alisa. Herman will be responsible for handling dissemination efforts across all sites and posting conference information on web page.

Barbara asked projects to make sure they are sharing local project information with their local planning councils and Ryan White councils. All projects identified their current exchange of information with local councils. Asked projects to send this information to Herman as well.

Asked for projects to report on budget. Rosana asked for guidelines for a project to submit a request for carry-over funds. Barbara advised a project needs to submit revisions on an SFR form in order to request carry-over funds. Sites must also speak with their project officer prior to submitting the SFR. Barbara discussed article received from Beatrice regarding Texas State not providing parity in Medicaid reimbursement to border health clinics. Asked sites about impact. Ray said it places burden on local clinics and results in less patients being seen. 10-15% of patients on border have Medicaid and El Paso is trying to get more clients qualified for Medicaid. Rate of reimbursement is based on utilization of services which has an impact on border populations which have not had the resources to access services, therefore the funding to their areas are substantially less. Affects rate of Medicaid reimbursement. Barbara asked projects to keep recording issues such as this that have an impact on services for clients residing along the border.

Herman advised he visited Los Cocos Sanitarium in Cuba and is willing to send a brief report to projects. Everyone would like a copy of his report.

Next meeting is March 12, 2001 at 10:30 am. Betty will try to work with Telecommunications at the University to arrange a regular access code with A.T. & T. for all our calls.