A Clinician’s Guide to HCV Treatment in the Primary Care Setting

Target Audience

The educational design of this activity addresses the needs of family medicine, internal medicine, and general practice clinicians involved in the treatment of patients with hepatitis C virus.

Program Overview

The ability to treat and cure hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is one of the greatest achievements of modern medicine. The simplified guidelines and the availability of highly effective and manageable direct-acting antiviral agents (DAA) regimens make it increasingly feasible to treat uncomplicated HCV in the primary care setting. This HCV eHealth Source™ activity was developed to empower primary care clinicians, who are ideally positioned to lead frontline efforts to achieve the worldwide goal of eliminating HCV. Practices such as universal screening for HCV, the implementation of treatment regimens, and strategies for supporting, as well as monitoring, patients post-cure will be provided.

Educational Objectives

After completing this activity, the participant should be better able to:

• Implement primary care–based universal HCV screening and risk-based periodic HCV testing
• Discuss use of the simplified HCV treatment guidelines for comprehensive management of treatment-naïve patients
• Explain the patient-specific needs, competing priorities, and comorbidities that are frequently associated with substance use disorders
• Discuss best practices for longitudinal risk-stratified support and surveillance following HCV cure

Faculty

Sherilyn C. Brinkley, MSN, CRNP
Nurse Practitioner/Program Manager
Clinical Services and Research, Viral Hepatitis Center
Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
Baltimore, Maryland

Graham Foster, FRCP, PhD
Professor of Hepatology
Queen Mary University of London
Consultant Hepatologist
Barts Health NHS Trust
London, United Kingdom

Physician Accreditation Statement

This activity has been planned and implemented in accordance with the accreditation requirements and policies of the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) through the joint providership of Global Education Group (Global) and Integritas Communications. Global is accredited by the ACCME to provide continuing medical education for physicians.

Physician Continuing Medical Education

Global designates this enduring material for a maximum of 1.0 AMA PRA Category 1 Credits™. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.

Nurse Practitioner Continuing Education

This activity has been planned and implemented in accordance with the Accreditation Standards of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners (AANP) through the joint providership of Global Education Group and Integritas Communications. Global Education Group is accredited by the American Association of Nurse Practitioners as an approved provider of nurse practitioner continuing education. Provider number: 110121. This activity is approved for 1.0 contact hour (which includes 0.1 hours of pharmacology).

Instructions to Receive Credit

In order to receive credit for this activity, the participant must complete the preactivity questionnaire, score 70% or better on the posttest, and complete the program evaluation.

Global Contact Information

For information about the accreditation of this program, please contact Global at 303-395-1782 or cme@globaleducationgroup.com.

Integritas Contact Information

For all other questions regarding this activity, please contact Integritas via email at info@exchangecme.com.

Disclosure of Conflicts of Interest

Global adheres to the policies and guidelines, including the Standards for Integrity and Independence in Accredited CE, set forth to providers by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) and all other professional organizations, as applicable, stating those activities where continuing education credits are awarded must be balanced, independent, objective, and scientifically rigorous. All persons in a position to control the content of an accredited continuing education program provided by Global are required to disclose all financial relationships with any ineligible company within the past 24 months to Global .  All financial relationships reported are identified as relevant and mitigated by Global in accordance with the Standards for Integrity and Independence in Accredited CE in advance of delivery of the activity to learners. The content of this activity was vetted by Global to assure objectivity and that the activity is free of commercial bias. 

All relevant financial relationships have been mitigated.

The faculty have the following relevant financial relationships with ineligible companies:

Sherilyn C. Brinkley, MSN, CRNP:  Consulting Fees: AbbVie Inc.; Speakers' Bureau: AbbVie Inc., Gilead Sciences, Inc.

Graham Foster, FRCP, PhD:  Consulting Fees/Honoraria/Speakers' Bureau: AbbVie Inc., BioMarin Pharmaceutical Inc., Gilead Sciences, Inc., GlaxoSmithKline, MSD (Merck & Co, Inc.), uniQure N.V.

The planners and managers have the following relevant financial relationships with ineligible companies.

Kristin Delisi, NP: Nothing to disclose

Lindsay Borvansky: Nothing to disclose

Andrea Funk: Nothing to disclose

Liddy Knight: Nothing to disclose

Ashley Cann: Nothing to disclose

Celeste Collazo, MD: Nothing to disclose

Jim Kappler, PhD: Nothing to disclose

Ron Schaumburg (Medical Writer): Nothing to disclose

Disclosure of Unlabeled Use

This educational activity may contain discussion of published and/or investigational uses of agents that are not indicated by the FDA.  Global and Integritas Communications do not recommend the use of any agent outside of the labeled indications.  The opinions expressed in the educational activity are those of the faculty and do not necessarily represent the views of the planners.  Please refer to the official prescribing information for each product for discussion of approved indications, contraindications, and warnings.

Disclaimer

Participants have an implied responsibility to use the newly acquired information to enhance patient outcomes and their own professional development.  The information presented in this activity is not meant to serve as a guideline for patient management.  Any procedures, medications, or other courses of diagnosis or treatment discussed or suggested in this activity should not be used by clinicians without evaluation of their patient's conditions and possible contraindications and/or dangers in use, review of any applicable manufacturer's product information, and comparison with recommendations of other authorities.

Fee Information & Refund/Cancellation Policy

There is no fee for this educational activity.

System Requirements

PC
1.4 GHz Intel Pentium 4 or faster processor (or equivalent)
Windows 10, 8.1 (32-bit/64-bit), Windows 7 (32-bit/64-bit)
512 MB of RAM (1 GB recommended)
Microsoft Internet Explorer 11 or later, Windows Edge browser, Mozilla Firefox, and Google Chrome
For HTML Client – Google Chrome (v70.0 & above), Mozilla Firefox (v65.0 & above), and Edge (v42.0 & above) 

MAC
1.83 GHz Intel Core Duo or faster processor
512 MB of RAM (1 GB recommended)
MAC OS X 10.12, 10.13 and 10.14
Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, Google Chrome
For HTML Client – Google Chrome (v70.0 & above), Apple Safari (v12.0 & above), and Mozilla Firefox (v65.0 & above)