John G. Bartlett, M.D., Director

The Johns Hopkins University AIDS Service (JHAS) was established in 1983 and now has a staff of 154 including 22 primary care physicians, 24 sub-specialists, nine mid-level practitioners (nurse practitioners and physician assistants) and a variety of other professionals on staff.

Activities include the following:

Clinical/Support Services: The Moore Clinic (2,660 patients and 24,000 patient-visits/year); a 21-bed inpatient unit; a 21-bed chronic care facility; and programs in social work, adherence (LINK program), clinical research (ACTG), outreach, Medicaid managed care (Moore Options), and mental health/substance abuse. The clinic has grown with the epidemic and now provides longitudinal care for patients from Baltimore and elsewhere in central Maryland, including a statewide network that reaches rural Maryland.

Training/Consultation: The JHAS is a local performance site for the Pennsylvania/Mid-Atlantic AETC Region. A telemedicine program has been developed that now provides tele-mentoring for five state prisons and one federal prison (380 patients).

Managed Care: Based on its experience in Maryland, Hopkins led the effort to develop the "Network of HIV Managed Care" that now includes 598 HIV care organizations in 47 states of the U.S. with the primary goals of instructing HIV care centers on the methodology of introducing managed care, collecting data on cost and quality of care, and establishing dialogue with policy makers.

Communications Activities: The JHAS developed an office of communications in 1997 to coordinate and expand our educational activities to include two websites, print publications, netcasting, and other methods of communication. The principal focus is the HIV website [http://www.hopkins-aids.edu], which includes treatment guidelines, HIV epidemiology, HIV news, physician consultations, a question and answer forum for patients, the full text of the book Medical Management of HIV Infection, managed care of HIV, the bimonthly newsletter, The Hopkins HIV Report, HIV case rounds, HIV prevention, a 300-item board-equivalent test in HIV competency. JHAS also has substantial experience with netcasting, which is now done almost routinely with the Hopkins AIDS Service-sponsored CME programs. User sessions for these conferences average 30,000/conference. The program publishes and distributes over 30,000 copies of the book Medical Management of HIV Infection annually, and the bimonthly Hopkins HIV Report is distributed to over 16,000 readers worldwide. The JHAS print media are self-published to assure speed of production, retention of copyright, and free distribution.