Hep Free NYC Research Committee Meeting Highlights
May 6, 2020 (3 – 5 PM)
In attendance: see below notes.
The goal of the Hep Free NYC Research committee is to create a network and foster collaboration among NYC hepatitis focused researchers.
Committee Chairs: Ben Eckhardt, MD, NYU and Bellevue -Benjamin.Eckhardt@nyulangone.org and Shashi Kapadia, MD, Cornell – shk9078@med.cornell.edu
Meeting Notes
Impact of COVID19 on hepatitis research – reported by meeting participants:
- Non-critical clinical research currently on hold
- Observed decreased access to harm reduction resources: Concerns about traveling for services, some harm reduction programs shut down for a period of time, increase in sharing supplies and public injection reported
- Changing patterns of substance use treatment access: more flexible take-home supply from some methadone practices, more telemedicine for buprenorphine management
Telehealth capacity building in response to COVID
- Limitations include the need for labs, privacy concerns, and tech, computer literacy, language and age-related access disparities
- Proposed interventions to support implementation include giving out smartphones, using medical students to engage patients over the phone, forgoing week 4 labs for patients on hepatitis C treatment
- Do not fully understand which populations benefit from access to telehealth (or what populations may not benefit/could be harmed by having services delivered via this modality — including homeless, immigrants with language/translation needs, older people)
Research Opportunity
- It may be an opportunity to collect data and report on hepatitis specific telehealth implementation experience across programs/institutions.
- Consider: Participatory Action Research approach and/or Health Dept survey.
Telehealth Practice Implementation Support
- Hep Free NYC is working with Andy Talal, MD on a new NYS Hep C Telemedicine Workgroup – see call notes attached, includes multiple upcoming training. The next workgroup call is Friday, May 15, 10 -11 AM. Email Nirah to join.
- Webinar: Rapid Implementation of Telemedicine for Hepatitis and General Health Care in Response to Coronavirus, with Su Wang, MD. May 13, 2020 (4:30 – 5:30 PM EST). Invite attached.
Drug Policy Alliance is supporting Rapid Response Research for Policy Change in the COVID-19 era.
- The Department of Research and Academic Engagement and the Drug Policy Alliance would like to facilitate collaboration between interdisciplinary researchers and people who use drugs in order to measure and evaluate the impacts of COVID-19 and related policy responses.
- Learn more and express interest here. Contact: Sheila Vakharia svakharia@drugpolicy.org
NYC Viral Hep Elimination planning
- Please review and provide feedback on the draft status report mapping out where NYC falls on the WHO Viral Hepatitis Elimination plan – by May 29th.
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- Please feel free to include recommendations for new or different indicators, data sources, references or considerations.
- This status report will serve as a background for a future elimination planning project.
- Opportunity: The Hepatitis Elimination Series in Clinical Liver Disease
In attendance (will develop a directory with committee member bios before next meeting):
- Andrew Talal, MD, SUNY Research Foundation – ahtalal@buffalo.edu
- Angelica Bocour, MPH, Health Department – abocour@health.nyc.gov
- Ann Winters, MD, Health Department – awinters@health.nyc.gov
- Benjamin Eckhardt, MD, NYU and Bellevue -Benjamin.Eckhardt@nyulangone.org
- Brianna Norton, MD, Montefiore – bnorton@montefiore.org
- Jeff Weiss, PhD, Mount Sinai – Jeffrey.Weiss@mountsinai.org
- Jessie Schwartz, RN, MPH, Health Department – jschwartz2@health.nyc.gov
- Justin Chan, MD, H+H Correctional Health – chanj15@nychhc.org
- Lina Cherfas, MS, Evaluation Consultant – lina@agoodquestion.net
- Matt Akiyama, MD, MSc, Montefiore – makiyama@montefiore.org
- Marc Badura MS, CCRP, SUNY Research Foundation – mbadura@buffalo.edu
- Nirah Johnson, LCSW, Health Department – njohnso2@health.nyc.gov
- Olorunseun Ogunwobi, MD, PhD, CUNY Center for Health Disparity Research Ogunwobi@GENECTR.HUNTER.CUNY.EDU
- Pedro Mateu-Gelabert, PhD, CUNY – pedro.mateu-gelabert@sph.cuny.edu
- Shashi N Kapadia, MD, Cornell – shk9078@med.cornell.edu
- Sheila Vakharia, PhD, LMSW, Drug Policy Alliance – svakharia@drugpolicy.org
- Victoria Foster, MPH, NYU – Victoria.Foster@nyulangone.org
Tags: Research Committee
