Philosophy
The MidAtlantic AIDS Education and Training Center recognizes the complicated issues of providing quality HIV/AIDS care and focuses on the entire health care team including physicians, nurses, dentists, advanced practice nurses, physician assistants, and pharmacists. The AETC custom designs programs, taking into account the providers' rural or urban settings, experience, and volume of patients with HIV. The MidAtlantic AIDS Education and Training Center provides HIV/AIDS-related training and technical assistance to health care providers in the District of Columbia, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia. The purpose of the project is to increase the providers' capacity to provide high quality HIV/AIDS care within the region's health care systems.

Project Detail
The MidAtlantic AIDS Education and Training Center provides education and training on HIV disease to primary care health care professionals in the states of District of Columbia, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia. The University of Pittsburgh, School of Public Health, Department of Infectious Diseases and Microbiology is the center headquarters for this project and provides programmatic, fiscal, and evaluation direction, planning, monitoring, and oversight of this project.

MidAtlantic AETC is comprised of a partnership between the University of Pittsburgh, School of Public Health in Pittsburgh as the center headquarters, and Johns Hopkins University, University of Maryland, Howard University, Virginia Commonwealth University, West Virginia University, INOVA Healthcare (Virginia), and ChristianaCare (Delaware), and the Health Federation of Philadelphia.

The University of Pittsburgh and the Principal Investigator, Linda Frank, PhD, MSN, ACRN has successfully directed, managed, and monitored this program since initial funding in 1988. The collaboration of this university, with its focus and international reputation in HIV/AIDS research and treatment, and a community-based health center network create a unique and ideal partnership. Together, these entities provide clinically-focused education, training, consultation, and technical assistance to health professionals, agencies and programs that are involved in the HIV/AIDS service delivery system statewide. The University of Pittsburgh serves as the grantee, central headquarters and educational performance site for central and western Pennsylvania.

The program targets health professionals with an emphasis on physicians, dentists, nurses, nurse practitioners, physicians assistants, pharmacists and other members of the HIV treatment team. Within this target population, training of minority health professionals and those who serve minorities is emphasized.