On September 17 and 18, 2013, Project Inform will convene a Think Tank focusing on hepatitis C: “Scaling-Up Risk-Based Hepatitis C Screening in the United States”. Hosting 30 national, state and local health officials, policy experts, doctors and community advocates, Project Inform will utilize the Think Tank to discuss the state of risk-based HCV screening, its challenges and successes, and ways to leverage the Affordable Care Act to improve access to testing, increase status awareness and decrease health disparities.
This is an exciting time in the field of hepatitis C.
In June 2013, the United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) announced their recommendations for HCV screening for both the birth cohort (baby boomers born between 1945 and 1965) and for those at high risk for infection. While a one-time screening for HCV of all baby boomers is an important goal (Project Inform supports all efforts to implement these recommendations), it is also a particularly timely opportunity to develop a 3 to 5 year plan for engaging a highly stigmatized population into HCV screening and linkage to care and treatment, as well as decreasing HCV transmission.
This meeting will seek to answer a variety of questions and issues, including but not limited to:
- What is the current status of risk-based screening in the United States?
- What are the specific needs of various populations at risk for HCV, and what are the enablers and constraints they may face in their lives as it relates to HCV awareness, testing, and linkage to care?
- What are the opportunities in the next 3-5 years to scale up and integrate HCV screening?
- What tools are needed to overcome these barriers? What are the priorities?
- Are there gaps remaining in the HCV screening recommendations? What else is needed to ensure maximum impact in screening efforts?
- How can the ACA and other funding streams be leveraged to increase screening in these settings?
We are excited and honored to host this meeting and we will share its results in the months that follow. Project Inform will develop a report based on the deliberations, conclusions and action items that result from the group’s answers to these, and perhaps other, questions.
We hope that these observations will spark additional discussions nationally, and inform local, state and federal agencies to implement risk-based HCV screening across a variety of service models. Project Inform will use this meeting as a spring-board for its ongoing work in scaling up screening of HCV in those at greatest risk for infection.