020: Integration of the National HIV Curriculum at Accredited Graduate Programs of Pharmacy

Statement of Purpose, Innovation or Hypothesis: As a result of advancements in the treatment of HIV, more people with HIV/AIDS will live near-normal life spans, increasing the demand for HIV care and care for comorbidities associated with aging. Concomitantly, the number of HIV clinicians entering the workforce is not sufficient to fill the gap created by HIV clinicians who are leaving the workforce due to retirement.1 To address this HIV healthcare workforce shortage, the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) provided an opportunity to integrate the National HIV Curriculum e-Learning Platform (NHC) into graduate health profession programs (HPPs) in medicine, nursing, and pharmacy. Engaging pharmacy students in enhanced teaching of HIV prevention and care during their pre-professional years can lead to an increase in the number of students who can provide competent HIV care and prevention services when entering the workforce, thereby reducing the HIV health workforce shortage. This presentation is focused on the integration of the NHC in graduate programs of pharmacy.

Description of Methods & Materials: Between 2019 and 2022, ten pharmacy graduate programs participated in the Midwest Integration of the National HIV Curriculum (MINHC) project. MINHC’s goal is to enhance the quality of HIV education at accredited HPPs by integrating the NHC into their curricula. The NHC is a free website that provides ongoing, up-to-date information to healthcare providers in the US to meet the core competency knowledge for HIV prevention, screening, diagnosis, and ongoing treatment and care. Through MINHC, faculty from participating pharmacy programs tailored the content from the NHC to achieve the HIV learning objectives. The evaluation data was collected through two tools completed by the faculty (i.e., the Documentation of the Integration Process Survey and Faculty Post Integration Survey) and one Retroactive Endpoint Assessment tool completed by students.

Data & Results: Over three academic years, MATEC worked with ten graduate schools of pharmacy to integrate the NHC into 49 courses reaching 3,794 students. Students increased their knowledge of HIV prevention and care across all modules. Pharmacy students reported lower baseline knowledge on all six modules than comparison groups of medicine and nursing students. They saw greater increases than nursing students across the six modules, while they also showed greater increases compared to medicine students. Students increased their intent to provide HIV care and prevention after they studied material from the NHC. Pharmacy students noted the largest increase.

Interpretation, Conclusion or Significance: The MINHC program has demonstrated that an online standardized national HIV curriculum can be successfully integrated into existing curricula of accredited pharmacy graduate programs. In addition to enhancing knowledge and competency, an important goal is to positively influence their motivations and aspirations to pursue careers in HIV care. Hopefully, this intervention will have an ongoing impact on expanding the HIV workforce. Furthermore, the findings suggest incorporating on-line standardized curricula may have utility for other diseases and conditions, such as STIs, hepatitis and mental health issues.

Disclosures: This project is supported by the Health Resources & Services Administration (HRSA) of the US Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) as part of an award totaling $600,000 with 0% financed with nongovernmental sources. The contents are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the official views of, nor an endorsement by, HRSA, HHS or the US Government.

Citations/References: 1 The American Academy of HIV Medicine, HIV Specialist, Workforce Supply & Demand. https://aahivm.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/FINAL-August-2016.pdf.