Healthcare Professional Perspectives on HIV and AIDS

Hours: 70 / Access Length: 12 Months / Delivery: Online, Self-Paced
Retail Price: $1,459.00

Course Overview:

While much is now known about HIV infection, its direct and indirect effects continue to challenge patients, families, communities, and caregivers. A new generation of health care providers is now needed to provide care for persons living with HIV/AIDS (PLWH). Unlike earlier professional caregivers who had limited treatment options and primarily provided care for those dying from AIDS, the new generation of caregivers must understand HIV/AIDS as a chronic condition that PLWH may live with for several decades. This course will provide a comprehensive overview of HIV and AIDS, and it will cover topics ranging from the history of HIV, transmission, prevention, patient management, and working with special populations. When a student completes this course, the student will have a thorough understanding of the needs of patients living with HIV/AIDS and will be better equipped to provide care for those infected with the virus.

Curriculum Developer Biography:

Willow Nolland is an expert in education and eLearning, with more than ten years of experience in curriculum development and instructional design. She has worked in higher education for over twelve years, and has developed numerous courses and has been involved in curriculum development across disciplines. She has experience with academic program development and coordination, curriculum development, student learning outcomes, educational partnerships, and student development. In addition, she has developed and administered professional development programs for various groups, including teachers, counselors, healthcare workers and members of private industry. She is a certified Quality Matters Reviewer and has taken graduate courses in online course development. She designs and teaches online courses at the college level and is proficient in a variety of course management systems. She has helped educators redesign their courses to transition them from a face-to-face format to an online format, and has provided course editing assistance to others. As a freelance instructional designer and curriculum developer, her projects have included course editing and redesign of online continuing education courses for nurses, CEU curriculum development for healthcare workers and teachers, and course review and editing for various colleges and universities.

Course Outline:

Lesson 1: HIV Infection and AIDS

In this lesson, you will learn about HIV infection and AIDS.  You will learn about the etiology, epidemiology, and transmission of HIV.  You will also learn about the history of HIV and the evolution of the virus.  HIV will be discussed from a national and global perspective to provide a thorough overview of the scope and impact of the virus.  Upon completion of this lesson, you will have a broad understanding of the history and extent of the virus.

Lesson 2: HIV Diagnosis and Progression

In this lesson, you will learn about HIV diagnosis and prevention.  In the first section, you will learn about HIV screening, testing and counseling.  You will learn about the different types of tests available and the ways in which patients receive test results and post-diagnosis counseling.  In the second section, you will learn about the pathogenesis of HIV.  Upon completion of this section, you will have a thorough understanding of HIV diagnosis and progression.

Lesson 3: Prevention

In this lesson, you will learn about prevention and intervention strategies that are used to reduce the spread of HIV.  The first section of this lesson will provide an overview of the prevention strategies used by individuals to reduce the risk of acquiring the virus.  The second section of this lesson provides information regarding the broad-scale intervention strategies used with individuals to prevent the spread of the infection through groups.

Lesson 4: Managing HIV

In this lesson, you will learn how to manage HIV in HIV positive patients.  In the first section, you will learn about patient experiences living with HIV to gain a better understanding of the challenges these individuals face.  In the second section, you will learn how to work with patients to help them manage their infection.  You will learn about basic medical management of HIV, as well as medical case management.  Upon completion of this lesson, you will be fully prepared to help patients manage their infection.

Lesson 5: Working with Caregivers

In this lesson, you will learn how to work with caregivers to ensure patients receive adequate care and treatment.  Formal and informal caregivers encounter significant challenges in meeting demands of caregiving to persons living with HIV/AIDS (PLWH).  This lesson discusses stigma, caregiver burden, and grief related to loss as these relate to caregivers of PLWH.  Global strategies for addressing these caregiving issues include: (1) identifying important caregiving problems and skills, (2) developing effective coping strategies, and (3) using community resources to assist caregivers.

Lesson 6: Special Populations

In this lesson, you will learn about the issues facing HIV positive members of special populations.  Over the course of the HIV epidemic the disease has disproportionately affected members of vulnerable (minority) populations, including racial, ethnic, gender, and sexual minorities. Persons from ethnic and gender minority groups face multiple challenges when seeking health care. Challenges faced by minorities are often contextually based and require nurses and other health care providers to examine complex interrelationships between person and environment. In addition to the groups mentioned above, incarcerated individuals who are HIV positive face special challenges regarding care and treatment.  This lesson will address the concerns faced by members of these special populations and provide strategies for working with them.

Lesson 7: Women, Children, and the Elderly

In this lesson, you will learn about HIV and its impact on women, children and the elderly.   These groups face unique challenges, issues, and considerations with respect to HIV/AIDS, and it is important that health care providers are aware of their special needs. This lesson will provide strategies for working with these groups that will ensure they receive the proper level of care and adequate treatment.

All necessary materials are included.

System Requirements:

Internet Connectivity Requirements:

• Cable, Fiber, DSL, or LEO Satellite (i.e. Starlink) internet with speeds of at least 10mb/sec download and 5mb/sec upload are recommended for the best experience.

NOTE: While cellular hotspots may allow access to our courses, users may experience connectivity issues by trying to access our learning management system.  This is due to the potential high download and upload latency of cellular connections.   Therefore, it is not recommended that students use a cellular hotspot as their primary way of accessing their courses.

Hardware Requirements:

• CPU: 1 GHz or higher
• RAM: 4 GB or higher
• Resolution: 1280 x 720 or higher.  1920x1080 resolution is recommended for the best experience.
• Speakers / Headphones
• Microphone for Webinar or Live Online sessions.

Operating System Requirements:

• Windows 7 or higher.
• Mac OSX 10 or higher.
• Latest Chrome OS
• Latest Linux Distributions
  

NOTE: While we understand that our courses can be viewed on Android and iPhone devices, we do not recommend the use of these devices for our courses. The size of these devices do not provide a good learning environment for students taking online or live online based courses.

Web Browser Requirements:

• Latest Google Chrome is recommended for the best experience.
• Latest Mozilla FireFox
• Latest Microsoft Edge
• Latest Apple Safari

Basic Software Requirements (These are recommendations of software to use):

• Office suite software (Microsoft Office, OpenOffice, or LibreOffice)
• PDF reader program (Adobe Reader, FoxIt)
• Courses may require other software that is described in the above course outline.