Needs Assessment Committee
Finn Schubert and Marcy Thompson, Chairs
October 14th, 2021, 1:00PM -3:00PM
Zoom Video Call: https://zoom.us/j/4708943670
Members Present: Fay Barrett, Randall Bruce, Billy Fields, Tim Frasca, Graham Harriman (Gov’t Co-chair), Amanda Lugg, Finn Schubert (Co-chair), John Schoepp, Marcy Thompson (Co-chair), Leo Ruiz, Maiko Yomogida, Angela Aidala, Freddy Molano, Guadalupe Plummer Dominguez, Karen McKinnon, Norine Di Giulio, Erin Harned
DOHMH, PHS, NYS and Other Staff: Cristina Rodriguez-Hart, Bryan Meisel, Johnell Lawrence, Kimbirly Mack, Noelisa Montero, Nadine Alexander, David Klotz, Jose Colon-Berdecia, Melanie Lawrence, Roland Torres
Welcome/Introductions/Moment of Silence/Public Comment/
Review of the Meeting Packet/Review of the Minutes:
Marcy announced that due to leadership changes within her organization, co-chair Amanda Lugg will be stepping down from her co-chair position. Graham welcomed Finn as the NAC co-chair to serve along with Marcy. The minutes of the July 8th meeting were accepted. Due to the Veteran’s Day holiday, the next NAC was moved to 11/9/21 1-3pm. It was acknowledged that Cristina is the new staff person to NAC and Melanie is the staff person for IOC and the new statewide SMI workgroup. Billy asked that committee materials be sent the Friday before NAC meetings.
Overview of Needs Assessment and HIV Data Sources with Discussion
Cristina delivered a presentation on the HRSA-required needs assessment (NA).
- The first slide has any acronyms used in the presentation.
- A NA is broadly an assessment of data sources, services, and needs in order to guide future policy and service delivery. The last NA was done in 2014, which included many recommendations. Several recommendations were reviewed during the presentation, in terms of how they’ve been successfully addressed since 2014.
- HRSA requires several components within the NA: an epi profile, resource inventory, provider capacity and capability, service needs and gaps.
- Several important HIV data sources and plans were reviewed: the NYC EHE Plan that has 5 strategies, 7 priority populations, and many key activities planned; the NYC EHE Situational Analysis that is a comprehensive snapshot; NYC EHE Epi Profile that has HIV surveillance trends for the 7 priority populations; the Ryan White Part A grant application with data for NYC and Tri-County and lays out upcoming service delivery priorities.
- NAC will be divided into 4 workgroups, with each one focused on a single component of the NA. Each will be led by DOHMH staff to facilitate the process of developing the NA. NAC members were asked to let Cristina know if they have a preference for a specific workgroup. To start with, workgroups will focus on existing data sources and plans and then decide if they need to request additional data. Workgroups will meet during the monthly NAC calls (through simultaneous breakout rooms in zoom), and they can each decide if they need more meetings than the monthly NAC call.
- As much as possible, data will be shared in summarized formats instead of as the original long reports. Attached to the October NAC outlook calendar invite was the “Brief review of HIV-related data sources” with links to data sources that NAC members can review.
Presentation on Framing Directive
Melanie delivered a presentation summarizing the new Framing Directive, including covering its rationale, how it’s different from the former “master” directive, presentations that were delivered to IOC last year that informed the content of the Framing Directive, the Framing Directive’s primary sections (context, implementation strategies, mechanisms, implementation outcomes, and client outcomes). She outlined implementation strategies in greater depth by type: planning, quality management, training, modify incentives, and change infrastructure. Some feedback received is that at the time of voting on the Directive in July it was too much information to take in at the last minute, digest, and then vote on; it’s important to understand the baseline (the master directive) in comparison to the new directive; a suggestion to Melanie to make clear the revisions she’s made to the directive in response to feedback or debate that occurred.
Following the NAC meeting a survey was emailed to NAC members asking that if they have any additional input on the Framing Directive to please complete the survey.
