The HIV Primary Care Workforce of Tomorrow: The UCSF Integrated HIV/AIDS Primary Care Capacity Nurse Practitioner Program

Abstract

The increasing demand for primary care services and the current health care workforce shortage is predicted to cause drastic reductions in the number of clinicians who are competent to provide HIV care. For the past decade, the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) School of Nursing has provided HIV specialty education for Advanced Practice Nursing students in the Master's curriculum. In 2013, UCSF was funded by the Health Resources Services Administration to establish a nurse practitioner (NP) HIV primary care education program to expand the number of NPs prepared to provide culturally appropriate comprehensive HIV primary care. To this end, UCSF faculty have developed and validated a set of HIV Primary Care entry-level NP competencies, integrated general HIV knowledge into the NP curriculum, and enhanced our current HIV Specialty curriculum and clinical training. Described herein is UCSF's Integrated HIV/AIDS Primary Care Capacity Nurse Practitioner Program.