Greater than 20% indicated that liver disease affects more than 15% of their patients. Providers indicated they were motivated to participate mainly by a desire to learn more about liver selleck chemicals llc disease, to be able to apply the knowledge they gained to future patients, and to save their patient time traveling to another VA medical center for specialty consultation. Seventy-one percent of providers responded that both the didactic component and case-based discussion were equally important, and the vast majority would still participate even if the didactic component was removed. Providers noted that topics of greatest priority for them in the primary care setting include NAFLD, alcoholic liver disease, and the
general management of patients with cirrhosis. The mark of success for this program, however, was the unexpected finding (given the program is still early in implementation) that participation changed clinical practice. Remarkably, learn more 75% of providers indicated they had
personally discussed the information they learned from the case presentations with their colleague (s), and 42% indicated they helped a colleague care for their patient with the knowledge they learned during the discussions of other participants’ cases. Discussion: This study shows that a SCAN-ECHO program involving videoconferencing between PCPs and specialists can educate PCPs in the delivery of specialty care from a distance and potentially improve healthcare delivery. Disclosures: Heather McCurdy – Speaking and Teaching: Onyx Pharmaceuticals, Bayer Health Care The following people have nothing to disclose: Reena Salgia, Patricia B. Mullan, Anne E. Sales, Richard H. Moseley, Grace L. Su Background and Aims While the prevalence of chronic infection with hepatitis C virus (HCV) in injection drug users (IDUs) is high (60-90%), treatment rates in this hard-to-reach group of patients remain disappointingly low. It has been shown that uptake can be improved by approaching and treating patients in
a community setting, and in East London IDUs with HCV are first seen by specialist nurses and then referred to a hepatologist for consideration of treatment. Even though the hepatologist clinics are held regularly and in a community setting, the treatment rate is still only 17%. It was therefore hypothesised Florfenicol that a protocol allowing specialist nurses to start treatment of low-risk patients in their outreach clinics would increase rates of treatment initiation and completion. Methods Participants were cluster-randomised by outreach clinic into two arms: While the standard of care (SOC) arm received a standard treatment as detailed above, the nurse-led (NL) arm was offered treatment initiation by specialist nurses in a community setting unless exclusion criteria including cirrhosis, anaemia and major psychiatric condition were present. Results 142 patients were assessed, 78 in the SOC arm and 64 in the NL arm.