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Using telehealth to improve access to hepatitis C treatment in the direct-acting antiviral therapy era
- Source :
- Journal of telemedicine and telecare. 26(3)
- Publication Year :
- 2018
-
Abstract
- Introduction One-third of the Australian population lives outside major cities and this group has worse health outcomes. Telehealth is becoming an accepted way to improve patient access to specialist healthcare. Over 200,000 Australian’s have hepatitis C virus (HCV) and new treatments are very effective and well tolerated. We aim to demonstrate that HCV treatment utilising telehealth support for care delivery has cure rates similar to onsite care in clinical trials. We also report length of consultation and calculate reductions in travel and carbon output. Methods Patient demographic, clinical, and treatment outcome data were collected prospectively from hospital software and analysed retrospectively. This was an audit of all patients treated for HCV in one year from a single tertiary hospital that included telehealth in their care delivery. Results Sustained virological response was achieved in 51/52 (98%) patients with completed treatment courses, and 51/58 (88%) of those who had a planned telehealth consultation as part of their management. A median of 634 km of patient travel was saved per telehealth consultation. Discussion We found that a telehealth-supported outreach programme for patients in regional Australia with HCV produced similar outcomes to clinical trials. There was a considerable saving in time and cost for the patients and significant environmental benefit through the reduction in carbon footprint associated with travel to distant specialist health services. We conclude that telehealth facilitated outreach is a feasible and effective way to access HCV treatment and cure in regional Australia.
- Subjects :
- Ledipasvir
Adult
Male
Telemedicine
medicine.medical_specialty
Pyrrolidines
020205 medical informatics
Sofosbuvir
Health Informatics
02 engineering and technology
Telehealth
Antiviral Agents
Health Services Accessibility
03 medical and health sciences
chemistry.chemical_compound
0302 clinical medicine
0202 electrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineering
Medicine
Humans
030212 general & internal medicine
Intensive care medicine
health care economics and organizations
Aged
Retrospective Studies
Hepatitis
Fluorenes
business.industry
Antiviral therapy
Australia
Imidazoles
Valine
Hepatitis C
Middle Aged
medicine.disease
Treatment Outcome
chemistry
Benzimidazoles
Female
Carbamates
business
Delivery of Health Care
Direct acting
medicine.drug
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 17581109
- Volume :
- 26
- Issue :
- 3
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Journal of telemedicine and telecare
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....22afc83facde29c85885e9166ee8fb1e