Beefed-up policies
that have improved hepatitis C virus (HCV) testing rates among Indian
Health Service (IHS) patients in the baby boom generation also highlight
the challenges the federal agency faces in treating perhaps thousands
who will need expensive direct-acting antiviral drugs.
EH Cook, Jr/Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
The
IHS provides care for about 1.9 million members of 566 federally
recognized tribes through a network of 46 hospitals, 344 health centers,
and 230 village clinics and health stations in 35 states. Recent
strategies that the IHS adopted to test the high-risk baby boom
population born between 1945 and 1965, including clinical decision
support tools in electronic health records, boosted the HCV testing rate
among patients in that birth cohort by 4-fold, from about 8% of
patients in 2012 to 32.5% in 2015 (Reilley B et al. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep. 2016;65[18]:467-469).
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