Theme: Models of Care Year: 2021
Background: Since 2012, the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) has administered a Hep C Community Navigation Program Model and trained over 170 patient and peer navigators at community health organizations to identify and navigate over 15,000 people at risk for or living with hepatitis C virus (HCV) through testing, linkage to care, treatment, and reinfection prevention. DOHMH sought to share the model of care to encourage its widespread use to support global HCV elimination efforts. Description of intervention: From January 2020 – January 2021, DOHMH and NASTAD compiled, designed and disseminated a “Hep C Community Navigation Model and Toolkit: Improving Care for People Who Use Drugs and Other Impacted Populations” that guides users through the model and provides customizable client-facing health promotion tools, program management guides, protocols and data collection templates. In the fall of 2020, NASTAD and DOHMH promoted the toolkit via a coordinated strategy that included email marketing and providing a series of trainings via webinar. Effectiveness: The toolkit reached 8819 email recipients, 672 webinar registrants with 233 participants, and garnered 1078 website views. This represents substantial visibility: the toolkit webpage appeared eighth in a Google search for “hepatitis C patient navigation”. Post-webinar surveys gathered positive feedback: over 95% of respondents found the materials relevant and applicable to their work and over 90% were satisfied with the webinars. Additionally, a recording of the training webinar was viewed 183 times. Conclusion and next steps: Our evaluation suggests successful dissemination of the toolkit. It reached a wide audience and was well-received; the materials appeared to address an unmet need in the field. NASTAD and DOHMH continue to promote the model and provide technical assistance. An assessment of the medium-term and long-term outcomes of the toolkit dissemination will be appropriate one year or longer after its launch. Disclosure of Interest: The development and dissemination of the Hep C Community Navigation Toolkit was supported by a Models of Care Award from the International Network on Hepatitis C in Substance Users (INHSU), which was funded by Gilead Sciences.
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