Advanced Electronic Population Health and Personal Health Record Tools to Improve Once Lifetime Hepatitis C Screening

Once Lifetime Hepatitis C (HCV) Screening Among Adults Using Advanced Electronic Population Health Tools and Personal Health Record Tools Tied to an Advanced Electronic Health Record (EHR).

This study involves randomizing patients due for once in a lifetime Hepatitis C screening based on Center for Disease Control and Prevention and United States Preventative Services Task Force guidelines in one of three primary care clinics within the MetroHealth System to bulk messaging and bulk ordering for HCV antibody vs usual care (routine alerting).

All patients had to have an active personal health record account at the time of being randomized.

Patients had to have been seen by their primary care provider in the last 6 months to be eligible and therefore had a "missed opportunity" for Hepatitis C screening.

Control group received "usual care" which in our system included alert (health maintenance reminder) to the primary care provider at the time of the visit and passive alert in their personal health record (i.e. an alert if they log into their personal health record and look for reminders for preventative care that it due/overdue).

Intervention group received same care as control group plus automatic ordering of the hepatitis C screening test and active electronic letter their personal health record that they were due for hepatitis C screening, what hepatitis C is, what the testing and if positive, treatment could involve, and instruction to go to one of the laboratories in the healthcare system to have their blood drawn if they were interested in the testing.

Inclusion Criteria:

• seen recently in one of the three primary care study sites and have an active person health record at the time of randomization; and meet Centers for Disease Control and Prevention/United States Preventative Services Task Force guidelines for once in a lifetime hepatitis C screening

Exclusion Criteria:

• already had once in a lifetime screen for hepatitis C or positive for hepatitis C (by lab test or International Classification of Disease code)