Telemedicine successfully engages marginalized rural hepatitis C patients in curative care.

Background: Rurally located individuals living with hepatitis C virus (HCV) face barriers to engagement and retention in care. Telemedicine technologies coupled with highly curative direct acting antiviral (DAA) treatments may increase accessibility to HCV care while achieving high sustained virologic response (SVR) rates. We compared clinical and socio-economic characteristics, SVR, and loss to follow-up among telemedicine (TM), mixed delivery (MD), and outpatient clinic (OPC) patients receiving care through The Ottawa Hospital Viral Hepatitis Program (TOHVHP).

Increasing the Offer, Shifting the Offer: Patients' Perspectives on Routinely Offering HIV Counseling and POC Testing in the Health Services Program of an Urban Community Health Centre.

Canadian epidemiologic data demonstrate the fallibility of established HIV testing approaches to reach, diagnose, and link to care a significant portion of the population thereby contributing to missed opportunities to reduce onward HIV transmission. Increasing and diversifying entry points to accessing HIV testing may be a successful strategy to reach people who remain undiagnosed. We sought to determine the perspectives of patients on the acceptability of an offer of routine non-targeted provider-initiated HIV counseling and point-of-care (POC) testing in the health services program of a Community Health Centre in downtown Ottawa, the capital of Canada.

Effectiveness of Outpatient Versus Operating Room Hysteroscopy for the Diagnosis and Treatment of Uterine Conditions: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.

Traditionally, hysteroscopy has been performed in the main operating room with the patient under general anaesthesia. Hysteroscopy performed in an office setting avoids the risks of general anaesthesia. The aim of this review was to evaluate the effectiveness of outpatient hysteroscopy compared with hysteroscopy performed in the operating room to diagnose and/or treat intrauterine pathology.