Health First

> This is a new initiative of IAPA, which is under development. It is a collaborative Partnership for HIV Clinical Care and Training. The primary goal of the project is to strengthen the delivery of clinical care to HIV positive patients in Chennai and the US through shared medical training, open forums for quality improvement and interpersonal development.

The project would provide relevant training experience to 1-3 US resident Physicians and equal number of Indian Physicians at the Government Hospital for Thoracic Medicine’s HIV wards, outpatient clinics and rural health centers. The physicians, from both countries, by working together, in training and providing clinical treatment in urban and rural settings, would be able to produce combined improvement projects that would benefit the HIV positive communities of Chennai (India) and the US.

Structured forums would be provided for discussion and exchange and for treatment strategies challenges and sharing of resources amongst clinical leadership. As an upshot of these, the delivery of health care to these marginalized people would be greatly enhanced. We had submitted a concept paper on this to the then Tamil Nadu State Secretary of Health, who had asked us to submit a full proposal. In all probability the project will take off from the year 2012