Transforming the Cascade Of Hepatitis C Care

Several factors are barriers to effective Hepatitis C care: 1) The majority of Hepatitis C Virus (HCV)-positive patients (45-85 percent) are unaware that they are infected; 2) Only a small minority of those in need of treatment receive it; 3) Members of minorities and older patients are even less likely to receive needed care; and 4) Until recently, even those who were treated had a low chance of clearing the virus or achieving cure; 5) It is possible that older attitudes and expectation of futility might continue to persist among patients and provider in primary care settings.

Community Health Centers are often the most culturally appropriate and accessible choices, particularly for underserved populations, with the benefit of ongoing trust and relationships with patients. Therefore, these can be ideal places to deliver complex HCV care if they possess the needed expertise. However, most community-based primary care and community health centers lack access to Hepatitis C evaluation and treatment services, leading to a major public health problem.

Thus, investigators propose to implement and evaluate a pragmatic trial to implement and evaluate a multi-disciplinary model for HCV treatment at Currently, the treatment initiation rates at each of these sites is estimated as less than 10%. The investigators hypothesize that our project will increase the rate of participation in all the steps of the HCV care cascade and ultimately lead to more than doubled rates of treatment uptake