With a grant from ZonMw, the UMCG has started a project together with Radboud-UMC and other partners such as the Lung Fund, C-support to generate practically applicable knowledge for improving care for patients with Long COVID. (Sept 2021-Nov 2022). We will map the prevalence, characteristics and personal and social consequences of these symptoms in a multidisciplinary study. TGO is responsible for a qualitative study in which 25 patients will be interviewed on video about the impact of COVID-19 on their daily lives and their experiences with recovery and aftercare and self-management. In this way, various patient perspectives are mapped in accordance with the international DIPEx method. In addition to the fact that this knowledge contributes to a new care path, these data will be used to develop an online module with patient experiences on the PratenOverGezondheid website. At the same time, Work and Health and Global Health are using Lifelines data to search for specific pathophysiological mechanisms and multidisciplinary risk factors for Long COVID-19 and to map the consequences of Long COVID-19 on quality of life and healthcare costs, absenteeism and production loss costs.
All this knowledge is brought together in an action research to contribute to better care. From TGO, we are leading this action research in which primary and secondary care providers from the Groningen and Nijmegen regions, together with patients, the project group and in collaboration with other national initiatives in this field, develop a multidisciplinary care path based on existing guidelines. We organize several working conferences to implement this care path, to learn from the experiences with it and from the results from the other parts of the research in order to continuously improve this care path in terms of content and organization.
