Solve HXV – Abbott

Opt-out HIV and HCV screening in emergency departments is an essential step towards ending the HIV and HCV epidemics globally. However, to do so requires coordination and agreement from multiple (and often extremely busy) stakeholders within a hospital, and many disregard it before it ever gets to implementation. Abbott asked us to propose a creative campaign to engage busy HCPs and hospital stakeholders, to educate them about the benefits of opt-out screening and encourage them to adopt it.

The insight: Healthcare professionals appreciate the ability to be able to quickly make a difference for patients and the wider healthcare system, and fear missing something they should have been able to detect. People with undiagnosed HIV or HCV come through emergency rooms every day with unrelated health problems, their blood often passes through hospital laboratories. Opt-out screening puts an end to these missed opportunities.

The idea: What percentage of the world’s population has undetected HIV or HCV? It’s impossible to know for absolute certain, because their disease status hasn’t been detected yet, meaning that number is X. And the only people who can solve X in the undetected HIV/HCV equation are healthcare professionals. By implementing screening in ED, not only can they help to solve X, but they can also help the world progress towards a time when X=0.