TasP® Collaborations

John Ruedy Clinic (JRC)

The John Ruedy Clinic at St. Paul’s Hospital is a comprehensive primary care clinic for people living with HIV/AIDS in British Columbia. The JRC is a collaboration between the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS and Providence Health Care. With a focus on addressing the needs of the whole person and reducing the impact of poverty, addictions, mental health, food insecurity and episodic homelessness, the clinic offers integrated and comprehensive services to patients. The JRC is named in honour of John Ruedy, MD, who helped transform St. Paul’s Hospital into a comprehensive clinical-care centre for patients with HIV/AIDS.   For information and appointments, call (604) 806-8060, our direct nurse line (604) 806-9303, or the direct POC line (604) 561-4896. You do not need a referral to visit the JRC. The clinic hours are 8am-8pm Monday through Thursday, and 8am-4pm on Fridays. For POC HIV Testing, we only take appointments up until 3:30pm through the weekdays, and provide after-hours medical support through an on-call physician.   In 2009, the JRC received the Excellence in Quality and Patient Safety Award from the BC Patient and Safety Quality Council in recognition of its innovative model of care and outstanding contributions to improving the health of HIV-positive individuals.   In 2014, Vancouver became the first city to officially repurpose its AIDS ward — achieving a very significant milestone. Starting in 1997 at the peak of the epidemic in Vancouver, the St. Paul’s Hospital 10C Ward had served those dying from AIDS. With support from the provincial government, the BC-CfE successfully led the charge in declining the number of HIV and AIDS cases in BC through the implementation of Treatment as Prevention®. Due to the declining number of people with HIV and AIDS requiring hospitalization, admission criteria for St. Paul’s Hospital’s 10C Ward were broadened to include HIV-negative individuals with active substance use disorders requiring hospitalization for management of other infections. Read more about this important story, the history of the 10C AIDS Ward and its repurposing to serve the growing number of patients referred to addiction specialists for substance use disorders.
Visit the JRC website

TasP® International Workshop

The International HIV Treatment as Prevention® Workshop is an annual meeting that brings together academic, policy, industry, and community representatives to review and discuss research and policy progress in the field of HIV Treatment as Prevention®.


First held in 2011, the Treatment as Prevention® Workshop was hosted by the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, and co-hosted by the International AIDS Society, Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS, World Health Organization, and National Institute on Drug Abuse.


The Treatment as Prevention® Workshop is a single track meeting with daily plenary, debates, oral abstract, and poster sessions. Each oral session has abundant time dedicated to open discussion, providing an opportunity for participants to share their experience to date, as well as protocols, preliminary findings, and future plans and needs.


Over the past number of years, the Division of AIDS at the University of British Columbia (DAIDS-UBC), the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS (BC-CfE), and a number of international partners have coordinated the highly impactful series of International HIV Treatment as Prevention® Workshops, which have contributed to building consensus around the importance of scaling up this life-saving intervention to attain the 90-90-90 targets by 2020. Following discussions between DAIDS-UBC, BC-CfE, and the International Association of Providers of AIDS Care (IAPAC), a decision has been taken to transition the coordination of the Workshop to IAPAC.


We are pleased to confirm that the Workshop is now being hosted by IAPAC immediately preceding IAS 2017 in Paris. IAPAC will work with members of the Workshop’s Scientific Advisory Committee to design a robust, forward-leaning program that helps to continue our forward momentum toward attaining decisive, measureable targets.


Further details and updates can be found on this website and at http://www.iapac.org.

Urban Health Acute Care Unit

The Urban Health Acute Care Unit at St. Paul’s Hospital is a 24 bed unit that provides acute hospital care for patients with infectious diseases, addiction, HIV/AIDS, and chronic/acute illness associated with marginalization. Previously the unit served as the 10C HIV/AIDS Ward, which operated from 1997 until 2014.

 

Due to the success of the BC-CfE’s Treatment as Prevention® strategy, reducing new HIV diagnoses by approximately 80% from the peak in 1987, there was no longer a need for a dedicated AIDS ward after 2014. The area was refocused and renamed the Urban Health Acute Care Unit and in July of 2020, moved to Unit 8A in St. Paul’s.

 

In addition to treating issues of HIV-related opportunistic infections or adverse reactions to HAART, physicians in the Unit are seeing more frequent injection drug use-related infections, such as cellulitis, endocarditis, osteomyelitis, and complications of chronic liver disease (e.g. hepatitis B and C). About 70% of the patients admitted to the Unit are active or previous injection drug users.

 

The Urban Health Acute Care Unit provides a much-needed multidisciplinary service which is patient-centred, trauma-informed, and includes a progressive harm reduction approach to addictions management. The care team is particularly experienced in the management of infections among marginalized patients who are often underhoused and with few community supports. The unit has built up extensive linkages with other care facilities and support groups in the community.

Visit the JRC website
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During the Canada Post strike, the following measures have been undertaken to minimize service disruption to BC-CfE clients and providers.

  • The BC-CfE Laboratory has transitioned to private courier for delivery of outgoing reports and documents. (Lab Contact Information: Phone 604-806-8775; FAX 604-806-9463)
  • The BC-CfE Drug Treatment Program (DTP) will fax outgoing forms and documents to the provider’s office.  (DTP Contact Information: Phone 604-806-8515; FAX 604-806-9044)
  • St. Paul’s Hospital Ambulatory Pharmacy has transitioned to private courier for delivery of medications. (Contact Information: Phone 1-800-547-3622; FAX 604-806-8675)

During this time, we recommend that documents be faxed or couriered to our sites, versus utilization of regular mail service.

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