Supporting Patients Recovering from COVID-19 (SPaRC)

Project Summary: Long COVID impacts 10-30% of people after a SARS-CoV-2 infection, with potentially devastating long-term impact on quality of life. Moreover, Long COVID disproportionately affects minority, rural, older, and other at-risk populations. Multidisciplinary Long COVID clinics provide clinical care and offer infrastructure for evaluating promising interventions to improve Long COVID outcomes. The Johns Hopkins Post-Acute COVID-19 Team (JH PACT) is among the country's first and largest Long COVID programs. Via this AHRQ U18 proposal, JH PACT proposes the following Aims: (1) To deliver a comprehensive, multidisciplinary program (Supporting Patients Recovering from COVID, "SPaRC") to patients with Long COVID, with an expanded focus on underserved populations. The SPaRC program will expand on the existing expertise of the JH PACT multidisciplinary Long COVID outpatient program to increase capacity and decrease wait times, with expanded services to underserved patient populations, including older adult, minority race/ethnicity, socioeconomically disadvantaged, and geographically distant and rural populations via enhanced partnerships with key existing organizations (e.g., Medicine for Greater Good, Center for Clinical Global Health Education). (2) To iteratively evaluate and refine the SPaRC Long COVID program to increase access and improve patient-centered, evidence-based care. The SPaRC program will be evaluated and iteratively refined in quarterly cycles via mixed methods evaluation (via patient data from electronic medical records and semi-structured qualitative interviews of patients/caregivers and staff/clinicians) to inform implementation strategies based on the "Expert Recommendations for Implementing Change" (ERIC) framework within a learning health system. In each review cycle, the implementation team and key SPaRC internal and external stakeholders will evaluate the program and outcomes and select goals for refinement and advancement for the next quarterly review cycle. An external Stakeholder Advisory Council, led by an independent Chair, will provide ongoing feedback via quarterly meetings throughout the project. (3) Partner with regional Long COVID stakeholders, including primary care providers (PCPs), to create and expand access to comprehensive, patient-centered, coordinated Long COVID care across the mid-Atlantic region. We will build a multi-disciplinary Long COVID provider-to-provider e-consult service, customized educational curriculum (delivered via both live and on-demand electronic formats), and continuing education toolkit for PCPs, in conjunction with key stakeholders (e.g., patients, caregivers, community leaders, and PCPs). JH PACT and the SPaRC Team include internationally-recognized experts in Long COVID care, patient outcomes assessment, implementation science, stakeholder/community engagement, and primary care education. JH PACT is ideally positioned to create a Long COVID Center of Excellence, leveraging the outstanding expertise available via Johns Hopkins Medicine, and to optimally engage with the AHRQ Learning Community.