Notable progress has been made in developing treatments for HIV infection. However, in the third decade of the AIDS epidemic, a major challenge is making the information and training needed to use these treatments effectively available to health care professionals in resource-scarce settings. The HIV Online Provider Education Program seeks to link HIV clinicians throughout the globe and encourage collaborative learning and the exchange of consultative advice. This is accomplished through two web-based initiatives:

1. HOPE Conference Series
2. HIV Consult

HOPE is a program of the Harvard University Center for AIDS Research

The HOPE Conference Series is a series of bimonthly interactive conferences that utilize a web-based conferencing system called Centra.  Using voice-over-internet (VoIP) technology, health care providers throughout the world are able to participate in real-time discussions of issues relevant to the care of HIV+ patients in resource-scarce setting.  Current participants include healthcare providers from sites in Africa, India, China, the UK, the US, and the Dominican Republic.  Each conference features a faculty discussant with expertise in a specific area of HIV medicine.  The discussant presents a brief overview of a topic, followed by an in-depth discussion of cases provided by our collaborators from various resource-scarce settings.  The conferences also allow doctors and other health care providers in the developing world to link with each other to discuss issues that may be more frequent in their particular setting, thereby helping build local capacity for training and education.

Click here to see a schedule of upcoming conferences or view recordings of past conferences.

The HOPE Nurses Conference is a new educational program that has the same technical structure as the HOPE Physician’s conference, but is geared specifically towards educating nurses in HIV health care. The Conference Series is organized by faculty from the MGH Institute of Health Professions (MGH IHP) in collaboration with faculty from the Harvard Medical School. The program is led by Inge Corless, RN, PhD, FAAN, Sheila Davis, DNP, ANP-BC from the MGH Massachusetts General Institute of Health Professions and colleagues Faith Beulah from South Africa and YRGCare in India. To ensure the relevance and effectiveness of the HOPE Nurses Program, HOPE Program staff interviewed nurses and nurse managers in Durban and Pietermaritzburg, South Africa and Chennai, India for feedback on topics and format. Based on this input, the Nurses HOPE Program held sessions on HIV Testing and Counseling, the Changing Role of Nurses, Task Shifting, and Pain Management. Over 40 nurses at 14 sites in Southern Africa have participated in these conferences. The Nurses HOPE Program will present a comprehensive year-long curriculum for nurses in resource-limited settings.

A number of HIV clinicians are available to provide on-line consultations to physicians and other healthcare providers on challenging cases and address the questions that arise in the care of patients with HIV in resource- limited settings.  This web site contains instructions for submitting cases and questions for review by the physicians of HIV Consult, as well as an archive of past consultative email exchanges.

Click here to go to the HIV Consult page.

• Botswana
  • The Botswana-Harvard Partnership
• China
  • The Clinton Foundation
• Dominican Republic
  • Instituto Dominicano de Estudios Virologicos, Santo Domingo
  • La Romana
• Haiti
  • Partners-In-Health
• India
  • Y.R.G. Care, (Y.R. Gaitonde Centre for AIDS Research and Education), Chennai
  • I-TECH (International Training and Education Center on HIV), Chennai
• Lesotho
  • Lesotho-Boston Health Alliance
  • Maluti Hospital
  • Motebang Hospital
• Malawi
  • Partners-In-Health
• Peru
  • Socios en Salud/Partners-In-Health
• Rwanda
  • Rwinkwavu Hospital/Partners-in-Health
• Sierra Leone
  • Mercy Hospital
• South Africa
• Church of Scotland Hospital
• Tugela Ferry, KwaZulu-Natal
• Edendale Hospital, Pietermaritzburg, KwaZulu-Natal
• King Edward's Hospital/ University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban
• McCord Hospital, Durban
• St. Mary’s Hospital, Durban
• The Valley Trust
• Nelson Mandela School of Medicine
• iTEACH (Integration of TB in Education and Care for HIV/AIDS, KwaZulu-Natal
• Walter Sisulu University
• BroadReach Healthcare
• Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Hospital
• Madwaleni Hospital, Elliotdale
• Medicins sans Frontieres
• Grey's Hospital, Pietermaritzburg
• Helen Joseph Hospital, Johannesburg
• New Castle Provincial Hospital
• Tanzania
  • MDH (Muhimbili University College of Health Sciences, Dar es Salaam City Council, and the Harvard School of Public Health collaboration) HIV/AIDS Treatment Program, Dar es Salaam
  • Bugando Medical Centre
  • Mkapa HIV/AIDS Foundation, Dar s Salaam
  • Nkoaranga Lutheran Hospital
  • The Clinton Foundation
• Uganda
  • Infectious Disease Institute/Mulago Hospital
  • Makerere University, Kampala
  • Mbarara Clinic
• United Kingdom
  • King's College London
• United States
  • Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts
  • Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts
  • Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts
  • Children's Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts
  • MGH Institute for Health Professions, Boston, Massachusetts
  • San Antonio Military Medical Center, Texas
  • Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland
  • Pangea Global AIDS Foundation
  • Harvard School of Public Health, Boston
  • Harvard Medical School

and individual physicians in Beijing, China; the Dominican Republic; Rwanda;Free State, South Africa; Tanzania; London, United Kingdom; the United States, Mozambique and Zimbabwe.

Lisa & Mark Schwartz Family Foundation

Boehringer-Ingelheim

Gilead Sciences