Abstract
BACKGROUND: Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is a major public health burden, affecting over 4 million people. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the US Preventive Services Task Force guidelines recommend screening everyone born between 1945 and 1965, but screening rates remain low. OBJECTIVE: To determine whether bulk ordering and electronic messaging to patients improves guideline-based HCV screening rates. DESIGN: A non-randomized controlled trial of 1024 adults from November 2016 to March 2017. PARTICIPANTS: Patients due for HCV screening with at least one primary care office visit in one of three primary care clinics and enrolled in the healthcare system's tethered personal health record (tPHR). INTERVENTIONS: Control patients received normal care for HCV screening, consisting of passive HCV reminders to providers during face-to-face visits and passive HCV screening notification through the patient's tPHR. Intervention patients received normal care and also had HCV antibody tests ordered for them and customized messages sent through their tPHR inviting them to go directly to the lab for HCV screening over a 12-week period. MAIN MEASURES: Percentage/number of patients receiving HCV antibody tests during the intervention period. Percentage/number of intervention group patients receiving HCV screening with other blood work. KEY RESULTS: In the intervention group, 33% (168 of 514) completed HCV testing, compared with 19% (97 of 510) of controls (OR 1.7, 95% CI 1.2-2.1). Bulk lab ordering appeared to have a large impact while bulk messaging appeared to have a less significant role. CONCLUSIONS: Leveraging population analytics and bulk ordering in an electronic health record with bulk messaging to a tPHR directly engages patients in blood screening tests and can significantly improve completion. This methodology has a broad range of applications including many recommended screening or disease-specific testing. This bulk ordering and direct-to-patient messaging approach improves patient screening while decreasing provider/staff work. TRIAL REGISTRATION: MetroHealth IRB16-00776 (ClinicalTrials.gov).