An estimated 10% of COVID-19 survivors experience long-COVID, often requiring additional support to rehabilitate and recover once discharged from hospital.
To manage this surge of new patients and support staffing levels, CNWL piloted an app called ‘Living with COVID Recovery’, an interactive platform to support those with long-COVID outside hospital.
The app is the first to enable assessment and utilise a therapeutic approach to support people with long-COVID recovery. CNWL’s clinical leads, Heidi Ridsdale and Rachel Okin worked with the app developer, patients and NHS partners to develop a pathway for community services, adapting the resources and improving user experience by providing clinical input around goal-setting, functionality and use.
The tool is one of self-management, through a library of clinically validated articles, symptom tracker, medication and measurements, goal planner and fatigue diary across mental, physical and emotional wellbeing. Connected to a clinician interface, the app is used to monitor progress, and patients send messages to clinicians who can respond quickly.
Patients are medically safety netted prior to being on-boarded, so clinical concerns can be escalated through a borough multi-disciplinary team. As data is generated by patients using the app
it is presented on the clinician dashboard, which allows clinicians to prioritise those with significant symptom load or deteriorating symptoms. 50 patients are using the app so far and feedback has been positive. The pilot has enabled knowledge for patients about self-managing recovery and created an opportunity for joint management of the patient cohort and integrated working amongst community services.
To see more you can visit the trust's website below.
