Theme: Epidemiology and Public Health Research Year: 2021
Background: A question posed at several recent Hepatitis conferences is: How can the substantial contribution of nurses to HCV elimination be better measured? Nurses have an essential role in the testing, diagnosis and management of people with HCV but their inclusion in datasets, and visibility in contributing to milestones in the HCV care cascade has not been measured. We aimed to remove the invisibility cloak, and quantify the contribution of nurses to six HCV care milestones. Methods: Clinical database records of the episodes of care for HCV antibody, HCV RNA testing, assessment for treatment, treatment commencement, fibroscan, and SVR12 confirmation were examined by consult type (doctor/nurse) from 2016-2019. For each milestone, the proportion of consults attributable to doctors and nurses overall and per year were reported. Linear trend was investigated. Results: Over the four year period, 378 treatment episodes were initiated. Nurses provided the majority of episodes of care across each of the HCV care cascade milestones (antibody testing 70%, RNA testing 56%, assessment for treatment 71%, treatment commencement 66%, fibroscan 78%, SVR12 confirmation 63%). Analysis by year demonstrated that the contribution of nurses to all but one milestone significantly increased from 2016, for example nurses accounted for 61% of assessments for treatment in 2016, rising to 83% in 2019 (p
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