HIV/HCV provider app

Hiv Hcv Mobile App

HIV/HCV Education & Learning for Providers (HELP) mobile app includes guidelines for reporting coinfection, pretreatment diagnostic requirements, treatment decision trees, drug access protocols and resources for continuing education!

 


This app is available FREE under “HIV/HCV education.”

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Press Release Statement

In the face of soaring hepatitis C rates among people of color living with HIV, Dr. Wari Allison and her team set out to address the issue in a uniquely modern fashion.

The Vice President for Health Policy and Director of the Center for Health Policy at The University of North Texas Health Science Center at Fort Worth first had to tackle two major barriers to getting this population life-saving treatment: There aren’t enough providers trained in or willing to take on hepatitis C.

Her solution was to meet them where are — on their phones. Allison and her team at UT Health San Antonio, where Allison previously worked, developed a mobile app that provides guidelines for reporting coinfection, pre-treatment diagnostic requirements, treatment decision trees, drug access protocols and resources for continuing education.

The HIV/HCV Education & Learning for Providers, or the HELP App, launched on Monday, May 23, 2022. The app was developed with ease of use and practicality in mind and features, for example, information about how to access hepatitis C drugs if a patient needing them is uninsured or underinsured. One of the developers’ key goals is to help health care providers manage and treat people living with both HIV and hepatitis C right in their medical home without having to refer them to specialty care.

“Accessible, easy-to-use, free educational assets like the HELP app are critical for skill-acquisition and task-shifting for providers managing hepatitis C in people with HIV,” Allison said. “Tools like this support and equip the patient-care workforce and contribute to facilitating access to care.”

The HELP app was developed within a federal Health Resources and Service Administration-funded Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program Special Project of National Significance to Cure Hepatitis C in People of Color Living with HIV. Allison was the program director/principal investigator.

Ruth Serrano, MD, assistant professor of infectious diseases at UT Health San Antonio, clinical director at the South-Central arm of the AIDS Education Training Center and medical director at the Alamo Area Resource Center, was among the first clinicians to review the HELP App. She said she would recommend it to all of her colleagues and called the app fast and easy to use.

“I can attest to the tremendous work that it takes to keep an app like this concise, up to date and engaging, and I think this app does it very efficiently,” she said. “I recommend this app to all providers taking care of patients with liver disease and hepatitis C to take advantage of this great tool.”

 


HIV and HCV:  Where We’ve Been, Where We Are, and Where We Need to Go

Moderator: Wari Allison, MD, PhD

The opening session to the HELP app launch week includes a testimonial video by providers on the app’s usefulness in managing and treating their co-infected HIV/HCV patients. The testimonial video is followed by an interactive panel discussion about current challenges and policies for HCV treatment access and solutions for ending the HCV epidemic in the United States.


The HIV & HCV Syndemic – Chasing the Storm with Live Sketch Artist

Presented by: Wari Allison, MD, PhD

In this presentation, Dr. Allison covers the characteristics and clinical consequences of HIV and HCV. She discussed how to overcome challenges when providing HIV/HCV care and how telementoring and the HELP app can be used for task shifting and skill acquisition to help end the HIV and HCV epidemics. A live sketch artist is featured in the presentation and produces an illustration of the presentation during this session.

 


Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) Care & Treatment for People with HIV

Presented by: Dr. Dora Martinez, MD

The final session of the HELP app launch, the HIV ECHO, presented didactics that consisted of strategies to increase HCV treatment initiation in PWH. Dr. Martinez discussed how HIV impacts the approach taken to treat patients with chronic HCV infection and increased their knowledge on addressing patient, provider, and structural level barriers using tools such as Psychosocial Readiness Evaluation & Preparation for HCV Treatment (PREP-C); she presented a guide on how to best prepare patients to succeed on treatment, rather than deciding who should begin treatment.