HepCure: Free Hepatitis C App Available for Patients and Providers to Connect and Cure
Topics
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate that more than half of all people living with hepatitis C in the U.S. are unaware of their infection and only 9% have been successfully treated and curedExit Disclaimer despite the availability of well-tolerated curative treatments for the past several years. A major priority of the Action Plan for the Prevention, Care and Treatment of Viral Hepatitis is improving testing, care, and treatment to prevent liver disease and cancer. Given the large number of patients with chronic hepatitis C (HCV) who have not yet been cured, there is an urgent need for more health care providers to treat patients infected with HCV. The HepCure initiativeExit Disclaimer aims to expand the number of health care providers treating HCV infection, improve provider knowledge of HCV disease management, enhance patient engagement in the HCV treatment process, and improve the quality and outcome of HCV treatment.
What is HepCure?
HepCureExit Disclaimer is a free, innovative provider and patient education toolkit, which uses web-based and smartphone-enabled resources, navigation, consultation, and support to enhance the quality of care for persons living with HCV. The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City developed the HepCureExit Disclaimer toolkit for HCV in collaboration with the New York State Department of Health's AIDS Institute along with their member community health centers.
HepCure draws upon the expertise and infrastructure of Mount Sinai’s Division of Liver DiseasesExit Disclaimer and the Sinai AppLabExit Disclaimer an innovative health information technology, research, and quality improvement project in the Division of Gastroenterology.
HepCure is offered free of charge and includes three integrated components:
- Provider Dashboard;Exit Disclaimer
- Patient appExit Disclaimer and
- Weekly provider tele-education webinar series.Exit Disclaimer
The three components of HepCure are interactive, facilitating primary care provider education, hepatitis C treatment capacity-building, and patient-provider communication.
The HepCure dashboard is a virtual toolkit that enables providers to (1) organize and track their patients with HCV infection; (2) use treatment decision support algorithms to determine treatment options based on HCV Treatment recommendations from the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD) and the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA); (3) track HCV quality of care indicators; (4) share information with patients using the HepCure patient app; (5) submit de-identified patient cases for review and discussion during weekly tele-education webinars; and (6) access provider and patient educational resources.
The HepCure patient app is a bi-directional patient-provider app that can be integrated into the provider dashboard described above or used independently. It is available for download on patients’ smartphones through Google PlayExit Disclaimer and in the Apple App StoreExit Disclaimer The patient app supports patients to (1) find out what treatment options are available to them based on AASLD/IDSA recommendationsExit Disclaimer (2) assess their own readiness to start treatment and access resources to improve readiness; (3) set medication reminders and track adherence and appointments; (4) record symptoms while on treatment; (5) communicate with their health care provider regarding treatment adherence, symptoms and personal lab data; and (6) access patient resources such as fact sheets.
The HepCure weekly webinar series takes place every Tuesday from 4:30-5:30 pm EST. All webinars are archivedExit Disclaimer for later viewing. Each week, the webinar features an HCV expert presenter and a discussion of cases submitted by health care providers through the HepCure Provider Dashboard. We held 50 webinars in the last year which were attended by over 700 live participants. Please email hepcure@mountsinai.org as “one of the best health-related apps I’ve ever seen” and recommends “to tell your fellows with hep C and every doctor you know about HepCure.”
More information
HepCure is a HIPAA-compliant cloud-based platform that uses SSL encryption. SSL encryption is a security protocol to protect personal information, as no data is stored on personal devices. The HepCure Terms of ServiceExit Disclaimer and Privacy PolicyExit Disclaimer provide further information. We are continually working to improve the HepCure Toolkit and welcome comments, questions, and feedback at hepcure@mountsinai.org.