Hepatitis C virus‐free endoscope procedures project: An in‐hospital elimination approach

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) elimination in the care cascades for patients receiving invasive procedures remains elusive. This study aimed to evaluate the efficacy of HCV-free Endoscope Procedures Project (CEPP) in the effort toward hospital HCV micro-elimination in Taiwan. An electronic medical record (EMR)-based remind system was introduced into gastrointestinal, surgical, urological, and gynecological departments prior to the endoscopy procedures. Anti-HCV tests were actively ordered on their EMR among those patients who have not been tested in the past 5 years. Those patients with anti-HCV+ were recruited into the care cascade for HCV treatment, including HCVRNA testing, direct antivirals (DAAs) delivery, and treatment response assessment. We divided the elimination project into two phases: before (2020 Jan to 2020 Dec, phase A) and during (2021 Jan to 2022 Sep, phase B) the remind system. The screening rate of phase B was 64.2% (1857/2893), which was significantly higher than phase A (18.7%, 899/4812) (p < 0.001). The screening rate of Department of Medicine (DOM) significantly increased from 21.1% of phase A to 89.3% of Phase B (p < 0.001). During phase B, the screening rate of non-DOM was 48.2%, which was significantly higher than 11.8% of Phase A (p < 0.001). During Phase B, 15 (0.8%) out of 1857 screened patients were HCVRNA+. Six HCVRNA+ patients received DAAs treatment, and all achieved viral eradication. The CEPP significantly increased the anti-HCV screening rate for subsequent care cascades, particularly in patients of DOM.