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CHAMP (Chicago HIV Adolescent Medicine Program)

Founded in 1998, and directed by Jaime Martinez, MD at the CORE Center, CHAMP aimed to meet the gaps and unmet needs in medical services for HIV positive adolescents by enhancing the integration of HIV specific, developmentally appropriate adolescent medicine services. In doing so, CHAMP hoped to:

  • Increase the number of youth receiving counseling and testing for HIV, thus increasing the identification of HIV infected youth;
  • Increase the number of HIV positive youth entered into comprehensive medical and mental health care services in a culturally competent, developmentally appropriate program, the Adolescent and Young Adult Clinic at Cook County Hospital and the CORE Center, and to increase adherence to medical regimes;
  • Increase retention in care by providing comprehensive case management that addresses the medical and psychosocial parameters needed by youth for daily living, and
  • Inform youth about available research and clinical trials and assist them to voluntarily participate in these clinical trials.

Thus, youth entered care earlier in the course of their disease progression, and HIV infection within the adolescent community decreases. HIV infected youth participating in research and clinical trials also benefit from advanced treatment protocols, which eventually become standards of care.

 

MIRIAD

Founded in 1999, The Chicago MIRIAD Project is a consortium of the four hospitals with the highest HIV sero-prevalence in Illinois: Cook County Hospital (CCH), Provident, Bethany and St. Bernard. This project was led by Mardge Cohen, MD, CORE Center.

Enrolling approximately 1,600 patients including 40 mother-infant pairs, the MIRIAD project:
• Evaluates the efficacy, effectiveness and operational impact of using the Determine TM Rapid HIV Test on a population of women presenting for delivery with little/no prior pre-natal care and with unknown or unconfirmed HIV status.
• Evaluate if using Determine TM in labor and delivery and in the immediate postpartum period will increase the number of HIV+ women identified.
• Determine if knowing their HIV status within a rapid context will increase the number of women accepting the perinatal transmission risk reduction protocol.
• Determine if combination antiretroviral therapy (ARV) at delivery and through the neonatal period produces greater reductions in the perinatal transmissions rate than ZDV or other therapies.
• Determine if, once identified, we can increase the number of women complying with intrapartum and neonatal ARV by providing intensive medical, psychosocial and substance abuse treatments.