US/Mexico Border Health Project Conference Call

June 4, 2001 – 10:30 am

 

 

Participants:
Tony, Ken, Steve (Arizona), David, Saleem, Sudhir, Herman, Betty (Centro de Evaluacion), Kari, Yvonne, Joao (New Mexico), Ray, John, Tony (El Paso), Sandi, Yolanda (Harlingen), Barbara Aranda-Naranjo, Robyn, Ledia, Pamela Bell (HRSA), Ara (Puerto Rico Student @ HRSA), Mari (San Ysidro)

 

Project Reports:

 

Camino de Vida:

 

Completed site visit with Evaluation Center last week.  They have completed 93 HIV tests and provided results to 16 clients.  Plan to begin collecting data on existing HIV case management clients in the near future.  They have contacted Arizona AETC to request permission to use their AIDS Education Training evaluation forms.  Announced Luiza Amodeo has resigned and they will be recruiting a new staff person.

 

Centro de Salud:

 

  1. The Clinical Social Worker (LMSW-ACP) position has been filled by Isabelle Robles.
  2. The fourth Care Manager reported to duty; the RN V, Albert Salinas, is a bilingual Hispanic male.
  3. Ray Stewart went to the Harvard Fifth Annual HIV Update Conference.
  4. John Wiebe of UTEP gave a presentation on the El Paso SPNS initiative at the United States Mexico Border Health Association annual meeting in Las Cruces.
  5. Rodrigo Chavez participated in two-day local conference for Project Cadena, sponsored by Center for Health Policy Development of San Antonio; these prevention activities focus on females at risk because of incarcerated males.
  6. International AIDS Empowerment has been accredited by the United Nations General Assembly to participate in the United Nations General Assembly Special Session on HIV/AIDS in New York City from June 25-27.  Skip Rosenthal will represent La Fe there and will be meeting with CIPLA, the Indian drug manufacturer who is marketing generic HIV anti-retrovirals.
  7. Data collection will begin this week; by end of month the objective of 250 SPNS enrollees should be achieved among existing clients.

 

Arizona Border HIV/AIDS Care Project: 

 

Site visit with Evaluation Center completed.  Presented at the US/Border conference in Las Cruces.  Getting ready to implement self-assessment for physicians as part of AETC training.  Tony advised that they will be sharing the AETC evaluation instruments with New Mexico.  Ken advised they are negotiating with the State Health Department for ADAP Minority Outreach funds.  Time allocation for provider training is running short, mostly affected by time consumed when commuting to training sites.

 

San Ysidro Health Center:

 

Plan to turn presentation of their paper to the US/Border Health Conference into a formal journal publication. 

 

Valley AIDS Council:   Yolanda advised they are moving along smoothly on implementation.  They have low numbers and have discussed with Ledia Martinez ideas on how to improve those numbers.  Presently anticipate that they will increase client number to about 50 by collecting information on clients by going back in their records to March.  Local MIS is up and running.  Planning for interviews with providers of HIV medical care on both sides of the border within the near future.

 

Multi-site Evaluation Issues:

 

*  All Spanish modules have been finalized and posted on the web.  When Spanish modules are merged into data set, it will not be possible to distinguish English from Spanish data. 

*  August grantee meeting – reminder that rooms must be reserved before June 30th.

*  David advised that he processes data on a 7/24 basis and will send the projects with a report on their submitted data within 24 hours.  

*  Draft for Barriers module is available and he plans to post it later this week for all projects to review.

 

Dissemination:

 

*  Presentation is Las Cruces was well attended.  David will post all power point presentations on the project web site.

*  Received notice that we have been accepted for presentation at NMAC in Florida in September.  David will provide all projects with the conference information and determine which sites will be able to participate in the panel presentation.

 

 

HRSA Issues:

 

*  Received all application from projects except from those which requested an extension.  Will provide feedback to sites within the next month. 

*  Barbara asked sites to coordinate cultural competency evaluation among sites if more than Arizona plan to use the competency instrument.  Tony said he is willing to have David post the instruments on the web page, as well as provide it to local projects.  Yolanda said she would like a copy of the instruments.  Mari said she would like to use it with their providers.  Barbara suggested that sites using this instrument have a conference call to discuss methods of using the instrument to ensure similar data collection for comparison.  Asked Tony to take the lead to arrange such a call and include HRSA staff.  Begin with a call between Tony, David, and HRSA. 

*  Asked Steve if he had asked Yolanda for the assessment tools used to assess their providers in Harlingen – asked Yolanda to provide the tools used with Arizona to aide in guiding their local assessment. 

*  Dissemination of papers – Barbara suggested a formal process be developed that would guide dissemination activities.  HRSA wants to be listed as co-author on all publications.  Recommended a publication committee be organized to develop a protocol to be adopted by the sites.  Joao said this is a very sensitive issue that requires ample time for group discussion.  Barbara suggested that the committee be appointed now, allowing them time to enter into discussions and planning, then be able to present to the general group during the August meeting.  Barbara asked Tony Estrada to chair the Dissemination Committee.  Tony agreed to chair the committee.  Barbara asked who else would be willing to participate on the dissemination committee, volunteers were Joao, Yolanda, John, Mari, Betty & Herman.  Barbara suggested committee meet July 9-10, 2001 and develop a template. 

*  Barbara encouraged projects plan to attend all sections of the Grantees Meeting in DC in order to allow ample time to cover all agenda items which will include dissemination issues.  Will include a minimum of one hour for dissemination for Thursday afternoon to discuss the dissemination issues. 

*  Hispanic Behavioral Journal, US/Mexico Border Health Journal are a couple of journal which Barbara recommends the projects consider for publications.  Joao said he has spoken with the US/Mexico Border Health Association about working with the projects about a journal publication with just articles from the projects with some minimal costs.

 

Other

  None

 

Next conference call set for June 18, 2001 at 10:30 am