The AETC Program is Transforming HIV Care

One of Achieving Together’s Focus Areas is to Collaborate, Cooperate, and Coordinate across Systems. This involves creating systems and processes to share data and resources and to build collaborative partnerships. AIDS Education and Training Centers (AETCs) play an important role in building partnerships and increasing the capacity of HIV providers.

AIDS Education and Training Centers are a national network of leading HIV experts who provide locally-based, tailored education, clinical consultation and technical assistance to healthcare professionals and healthcare organizations to integrate state-of-the-science comprehensive care for those living with or affected by HIV. The AETC Program transforms HIV care by building the capacity to provide accessible, high-quality treatment and services throughout the United States and its territories. 

Texas is part of the South Central AETC (SCAETC) region, with a regional central office at the University of New Mexico (UNM) at Project ECHO. SCAETC has six regional partner sites in Texas who support the SCAETC mission to increase the number of healthcare providers who are effectively educated and motivated to counsel, diagnose, treat, and medically manage people living with HIV, and to help prevent HIV transmission. The program serves all healthcare team members (from those new to the field to experts), health profession students and faculty, and other multidisciplinary care team members.

Highlighted trainings from our Texas partners for 2022 include:

• VAC Project ECHO: Linkage to Care and Case Management virtual sessions are held biweekly on Thursdays. These ECHO sessions unite a multidisciplinary team of experts providing care to HIV positive persons in rural, under served, and key population areas.
• VAC Rural HIV ECHO sessions are offered on a Bi-monthly basis on 1^st Friday of the month. These sessions primarily focus on rural HIV care services providers and how they have acclimated to the pandemic to continue to serve clients. More information on project ECHO can be found here.
• The PASO site in Amarillo hosts online training in collaboration with Texas Tech HSC that can be found at: https://healthedu.ttuhsc.edu.
• Our Houston/BCM partner, in collaboration with partners VAC and UTHSA and TX Dept. of State Health Services, will offer the second Texas Rapid Start Institute in early 2022. The session will be workshop-based to provide health professionals with tools for developing and implementing Rapid Start programs.
• A comprehensive lunch-hour Ending the HIV Epidemic (EHE) webinar series planned for January 2022 that PHNTX partner is developing. The new series will support management throughout a patient’s life stages and throughout the life cycles from at-risk, to living with HIV, and beyond diagnosis of HIV.
• The 2022 National Latinx Conference will be held March 24-March 26, 2022, in Albuquerque as a Hybrid event. The Conference on HIV/HCV/Substance Use Disorders (SUD) aims to provide healthcare and social service providers with innovative concepts, best practices, and new information on how to better serve Latinx communities. Workshops will cover a wide range of topics essential to all healthcare providers and practitioners who serve the Latinx Community.
• The 6^th Annual UTMB-SCAETC conference to be held in May (date and time TBD) will be a full-day, high-energy conference to consider how together we can change the face of HIV prevention and care in Texas.
• The VAC 2022 LGBTQ Health = PRIDE conference will be held in June to provide Healthcare and Social Service Providers with innovative concepts and best practices on how to better serve the LGBTQ+ Latinx communities.
• The 2022 South Texas Health Equity Conference is planned for September and focuses on all aspects of Health Equity in the South Texas Region.
• The UTMB site will offer “Countering Stigma and Discrimination in Institutional Culture” and “Engaging Patients in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice Who Can Quickly become Lost in the System” (date and time TBD).

Please visit our registration website here for more information and to participate in upcoming training events. For more information on the SCAETC program in general visit scaetc.org or contact scaetcecho@salud.unm.edu.