Improving Access to Multidisciplinary Care for patients with long COVID

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Project Summary/Abstract The proposed project seeks to expand the existing UW multidisciplinary long COVID clinic (the Post COVID Rehabilitation and Recovery clinic) to improve access and coordination of care for patients with long COVID. This project will allow the team to improve care delivery for all patients, but will emphasize improving access to multidisciplinary care for underserved patients including patients in rural communities, Alaska, and in Latinx, Native American, and SE Asian communities. With additional funding, we will make an enormous impact on a large region throughout WWAMI, focusing initially on Washington and Alaska, and Idaho, Montana, Wyoming in the later years. The aims of this proposed project include Aim 1: Improve clinical care delivery and expand access to the UW PCRRC. The goal of this aim is to improve access and care delivery for patients from Washington and Alaska that are referred to the Post-COVID Rehabilitation and Recovery clinic. The key areas that we will be expanding in this project include: 1) coordination of care; 2) behavioral health support; 3) vocational services; and 4) electronic consults. Aim 2: Engage underserved communities to enhance long COVID education and connection to local resources. The overall goal of our community engagement activities will be to foster authentic longitudinal relationships, promote ongoing collaborations and address the needs of community members. We will accomplish this by: 1) forming a community advisory board to guide our engagement activities; 2) producing publicly accessible educational webinars (community conversations) addressing COVID and long COVID; 3) producing culturally responsive patient education materials on long COVID in English, Spanish, and SE Asian languages; and 4) participating in community events including town hall meetings, community health fairs, pop-up vaccination events to share information about the UW long COVID clinic and long COVID. Aim 3: Improve patient access in the WWAMI region by training a network of clinicians specializing in long COVID care. In this aim, we will provide ongoing education and support to community PCPs, psychologists, and physical therapists with a focus on providers in under-resourced areas across the WWAMI region, including rural areas. We will accomplish this by: 1) In partnership with the Washington State DOH, we will create an advanced training certificate program for long COVID. 2) We will conduct monthly interactive case-based webinars. 3) We will also identify local physician and physical therapy leads who can be trained to be local experts in the care of patients with long COVID and are a part of our extended UW PCRRC network. 4) We will hold weekly virtual office hours that are pre-specified with a scheduling system to allow community providers to discuss cases and ask questions that will help them with their own management of patients with long COVID.