Dr. Don Nease is on a quest to find the best ways to help patients suffering from symptoms of long COVID find relief.

The University of Colorado Department of Family Medicine (DFM) professor and researcher recently announced a five-year grant from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) to fund a five-year study to uncover the answers.

The objective of the study is to work with the existing connections between primary and specialty care to test and implement novel ways of bringing care and resources to patients who are experiencing long covid symptoms.

“Estimates are that among people who have been infected, that it can be as high as 20 percent who then go onto experience long COVID,” says Dr. Nease.

“The challenge with long COVID,“ he says, “is the diverse nature in which it manifests in patients.”

“One paper that came out recently indicates that there may be 4 clusters of symptoms that most commonly appear in patients with long COVID.”

Nease says plans call for working with 30 primary care practices in Colorado to test a tiered system of care:

1. The first for patients with relatively mild symptoms to be managed at primary care level with information and education.

2. The second for patients with more complex symptoms involving consultation with specialty care – involving 4 interdisciplinary clinics in Colorado – including electronic consults and telehealth visits.

3. The third for patients who need more intensive care and services receiving in-person specialty consults.

The first step in the study is to recruit practices and work with them to help them determine how many patients that they have who are experiencing long COVID symptoms. Then assist them to set up procedures to serve patients in terms of the tiered system.

That initial set up will be followed by surveys and interviews to evaluate – for both patients and care givers.

“This is a program that AHRQ is investing a lot in,” says Nease. In addition to the CU study, he says that AHRQ is also funding studies with eight other sites across the country. The idea is to share findings and collaborate on solutions that can become best practices for treating patients with long COVID.

But, that’s not all. He says that long COVID could just be the tip of the iceberg.

“One of the most exciting possibilities for this is that if we can build this kind of infrastructure linking primary and specialty care - we can use it for other things, other conditions, so that no matter where anybody lives across the state that they have access to the best care possible.”

Editor’s Note:
Working alongside Nease are co-PI Dr. Sarah Jolley, who leads the UCHealth Long COVID Multidisciplinary Clinic and co-investigators – Jodi Holtrop, PhD, Kyle Leggott, MD, and Jun Ying, PhD