Improving Adherence to Hepatitis C Screening: A Pilot Project
Abstract
**Please note that the full text is embargoed** ABSTRACT: Purpose: The purpose of this project was to determine whether implementing a clinical prompt
reminder in the electronic medical record (EMR) would improve provider's adherence to Hepatitis C
Viral (HCV) screening per the United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) guideline.
Background: Nearly four million Americans are infected with HCV, but the majority are unaware of
their status (CDC, 2012). HCV is a chronic progressive disease and is strongly associated with liver
cancer and other HCV complications in untreated individuals (El-Serag, 2012). Although HCV can
be cured, the lack of HCV screening makes the disease underdiagnosed and undertreated.
Methodology: A pilot project was conducted using a one group pre and post- test design without a
comparison group. Pre-intervention and post-intervention data was collected by retrospective chart
review. The project was conducted in three phases. In phase one, a baseline assessment of the
provider's compliance to the HCV screening guideline was conducted. In phase two, the HCV birth
cohort alert was implemented into the EMR. Finally, phase three assessed whether the prompt made
any difference in the provider's screening rate.
Results: The findings showed statistically significant differences m the pre-intervention and
post-intervention with a p= 0.008 ( 1 tailed).
Conclusions: Implementing the HCV clinical prompt reminder to the EMR had a statistically and
clinically significant effect on increasing health care providers (HCPs) adherence to the
recommended screening guidelines.