A huge congrats to the Telehealth and Text to Improve Engagement in Care (i2TEC) initiative team, including Lance L. Burwell, LIMHP, PC– behavioral therapist at the UNMC SCC, who will be presenting work at the 2024 National Conference on Social Work and HIV/AIDS between May 22nd and 25th.
Lance and co-presenters will be detailing progress with the i2TEFC initiative, which is funded by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) Special Projects of National Significance. The intervention is meant to be a tool that supports people with HIV in achieving viral suppression and engaging in care. It consists of 12 video-based counseling sessions delivered by a social worker or mental health professional, who uses motivational interviewing and problem-solving methods to support clients with HIV in addressing mental health, substance use, and other barriers to care engagement. By delivering services from a telehealth platform, barriers related to HIV stigma and transportation access can be reduced thus allowing more people access to services which address barriers and encourage engagement in care to help people living with HIV achieve and maintain viral suppression.
This intervention has been implemented at UNMC for one year and has included intervention learning sessions, site visits, and monthly monitoring calls, with the results of this project presented in May at a workshop titled Bridging HIV Care Gaps through Telehealth: An Evidence-Informed Intervention to Support Engagement in Care.
Congrats Lance! If you happen to be attending the conference in May, you don’t want to miss this exciting presentation! If not, we will also recap the highlights here on the UNMC ID blog.