NEWS
West Virginia University School of Medicine
WVU Awarded NIH Grant to Integrate HIV , Hepatitis C , and Opioid-Use-Disorder Care
West Virginia University ( WVU ) researcher Judith Feinberg has partnered with colleagues at Yale University to integrate services for opioid use disorder , the hepatitis C virus and HIV in 20 primary care clinics across West Virginia . The National Institute on Drug Abuse expects to award over $ 6.6 million during the fiveyear project .
West Virginia has the highest overdose rate in the country , and the state has experienced numerous outbreaks of both HIV and hepatitis C in recent years . Because drug and alcohol use are known to place people at a higher risk for getting hepatitis C and HIV , these health conditions are deeply intertwined with the opioid crisis .
“ The goal of this grant is to integrate care for substance use disorder , infectious diseases and other medical needs that people have — at the same time , in the same place — so that we don ’ t have key aspects of people ’ s medical care being handled in a disconnected manner ,” said Feinberg , the WVU Department of Medicine ’ s vice chair for research . “ It ’ s efficient and appropriate because , first of all , it ’ s all part of the greater health issue for people who use drugs . You can ’ t deal with one effectively without dealing with the other . And second of all , there is such a paucity of specialist care here in West Virginia that we can ’ t be sending patients hither and yon to get appropriate care .”
People who live in West Virginia ’ s more rural areas may have an exceptionally difficult time accessing the specialized care they need . For instance , if someone with a chronic case of hepatitis C lives in Pocahontas County ( population : 7,869 ) but must see a WVU Medicine specialist in Monongalia County ( population : 105,822 ), that ’ s a six-hour round-trip drive .
The injection drug epidemic in West Virginia occurs mostly in rural settings , where primary care providers are uniquely positioned to reduce the harms of drug misuse , especially the increased risk of HIV and hepatitis C when drugs are being injected .
“ This research has great potential to effectively address the intertwined opioid and HIV epidemics in a state that is most profoundly impacted by both conditions ,” said Rick Altice , one of the principal investigators on the research and a professor at Yale .
Feinberg , Altice and Lynn Madden — a Yale assistant professor who is also a principal investigator — will use a number of tools to empower physicians , physician assistants and nurse practitioners at 20 federally qualified health centers to evaluate and treat patients for substance use disorder , HIV and hepatitis C .
These tools will include automated screening processes and a clinical monitoring dashboard within the electronic medical record .
Using Project ECHO — a medical education program funded by the West Virginia Clinical and Translational Science Institute —
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