Arm Groups

Detailed Description

The primary objective of the present research is to determine the effectiveness of FHCSD's Long COVID and Fatiguing Illness Recovery Program (LC&FIRP) on clinician- and patient-level outcomes. LC&FIRP is comprised of a teleECHO program focused on multi-specialty case-consultation and peer-to-peer sharing of emerging best practices to support management of complex cases associated with Long COVID, ME/CFS, and other PIFI. Our secondary objective is to determine the feasibility, acceptability, and sustainability of LC&FIRP. Our findings should provide a fuller understanding of the potential impact of innovative technology enabled multi-disciplinary team-based care models in low-resource, community-based primary care settings. This study will provide much needed high-quality evidence on the effectiveness of a technology enabled multi-disciplinary team-based care model for the management of Long COVID, ME/CFS, and other PIFI within a community clinic setting, while simultaneously providing evidence regarding the feasibility, acceptability, and sustainability of the approach. Given that LC&FIRP includes a teleECHO program that is case-based, interactive, and occurs in real-time, it has a set of distinct advantages to the traditional practice of sequential in-person specialty referrals to address complex patient cases. The investigators hypothesize that clinician exposure to weekly teleECHO sessions with monthly interactive webinars and quarterly short courses will significantly improve clinician- and patient-level outcomes compared to clinician exposure to monthly interactive webinars and quarterly short courses alone. The investigators will evaluate LC&FIRP using an effectiveness-implementation hybrid type 2 design. Specifically, the investigators will conduct a two-arm, single-blind, pragmatic, quality improvement, professional cluster, randomized controlled trial. The target for weekly teleECHO sessions, monthly interactive webinars, and quarterly short courses are licensed health care professionals. Therefore, the present research will include professional clusters that will consist of primary care physicians, physician assistants, and nurse practitioners at FHCSD caring for patients who have had persistent symptoms and a decline in health-related quality of life associated with Long COVID, ME/CFS, and/or other PIFI. 20 consenting clinicians across primary care clinics at FHCSD will be randomized at a ratio of 1:1 to either participate in 1) weekly teleECHO sessions with monthly interactive webinars and quarterly short courses or 2) monthly interactive webinars and quarterly short courses alone (a control group). All clinicians will have the option to receive continuing medical education credit for the educational sessions they engage in. Throughout participation, the investigators expect that the clinicians will provide care for approximately 856 FHCSD patients diagnosed with Long COVID, ME/CFS, or other PIFI (approximately 42 patients per clinician). The clinicians will be consented and will receive exposure to intervention components (i.e., a professional cluster). Therefore, patient outcomes derived from routine clinical care will be evaluated according to the study arm of their respective clinicians. Outcomes will be measured at 3-, 6-, 9-,12-, 18-, 24-, and 30-months post-baseline for clinicians and for patients at 3-, 6-, 9-, and 12-months post assignment to a participating clinician. Inclusion criteria for clinicians includes 1) being employed by FHCSD for clinical care delivery, 2) being a licensed primary care physician, physician assistant, or nurse practitioner, 3) caring for patients who have had persistent symptoms and a decline in health-related quality of life associated with Long COVID, ME/CFS, and/or other PIFI, and 4) being willing and able to actively participate in LC&FIRP. There are no exclusion criteria. FHCSD medical leadership has verbally extended an invitation to the approximately 200 eligible clinicians at FHCSD to participate in LC&FIRP (a follow-up email will also be sent). Those who are interested will provide written informed consent, complete a baseline survey, and will be randomized to one of the two study arms. An electronic randomization list will be generated using the latest version of the statistical software platform R (version 3.3.2, http://www.r-project.org). The list will be securely integrated into the cloud-based Research Electronic Data Capture (REDCap) tool. Allocation will be concealed from all investigators and staff until the study group is assigned. Only the study manager and research assistants involved in the delivery of the intervention components will subsequently be made aware of allocation. It is not possible to mask participating clinicians, however, patients of participating clinicians will not have knowledge of their clinicians potential participation in weekly teleECHO sessions, monthly interactive webinars, and quarterly short courses. All staff that are involved in the collection of data and investigators that conduct analyses will remain blinded to allocation throughout the study. Clinician participation in this study is voluntary. Participating clinicians may decide not to participate or may leave the study at any time. This decision will not result in any penalty or loss of benefits to which they are entitled. Information that has already been collected may still be used, but no new information will be collected. The withdrawal reason and the withdrawal date will be documented.