Lessons Learned During COVID-19 Will Help Us Better Treat HCV

If the pandemic can be said to have any silver lining, it is that the rapid transition to telehepatology services allowed us to freshly address some of the key challenges that preceded it. Nowhere has this been more apparent than in our ability to simplify the care of patients with hepatitis C virus (HCV).

Typically, the care for such patients involves multiple steps and several providers. Anti-HCV screening is followed by the testing of positive patients for viremia, usually conducted by the primary care team. Patients are then referred to a specialist for HCV genotyping and staging of liver disease. If HCV treatment is prescribed, scheduled monitoring visits are conducted. This long road to a cure presents many opportunities for speed bumps that can delay or interrupt care.

Overcoming the Complexity of Care

Even before the pandemic, several programs aimed to reduce the complexity of the cascade of care. For example, Project ECHO programs combining various modalities of telemedicine mentored providers in rural and underserved communities on how to provide essential HCV care.

Using a different approach, we worked with the Kentucky Rural Health Association (KRHA) to overcome access barriers for patients in our outlying referral areas. Our southwest Ohio center borders Kentucky and includes portions of West Virginia, which are high-risk, low-resource rural areas with limited numbers of healthcare providers and specialists.