Does a Technology Enabled Multi-disciplinary Team-based Care Model for the Management of Long COVID and Other Fatiguing Illnesses Improve Clinical Care of Patients and Represent a Sustainable Approach Within a Federally Qualified Health Center?

Study Purpose

The primary objective of the present research is to determine the effectiveness of Family Health Center of San Diego'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, Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS), and other post-infectious fatiguing illnesses (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.

Recruitment Criteria

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Healthy volunteers are participants who do not have a disease or condition, or related conditions or symptoms

No
Study Type

An interventional clinical study is where participants are assigned to receive one or more interventions (or no intervention) so that researchers can evaluate the effects of the interventions on biomedical or health-related outcomes.


An observational clinical study is where participants identified as belonging to study groups are assessed for biomedical or health outcomes.


Searching Both is inclusive of interventional and observational studies.

Interventional
Eligible Ages 18 Years and Over
Gender All
More Inclusion & Exclusion Criteria

Inclusion Criteria:

  • - 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 PASC, ME/CFS, and/or OPIFI, and 4) being willing and able to actively participate in LC&FIRP.

Exclusion Criteria:

  • - There are no exclusion criteria.

Trial Details

Trial ID:

This trial id was obtained from ClinicalTrials.gov, a service of the U.S. National Institutes of Health, providing information on publicly and privately supported clinical studies of human participants with locations in all 50 States and in 196 countries.

NCT05167227
Phase

Phase 1: Studies that emphasize safety and how the drug is metabolized and excreted in humans.

Phase 2: Studies that gather preliminary data on effectiveness (whether the drug works in people who have a certain disease or condition) and additional safety data.

Phase 3: Studies that gather more information about safety and effectiveness by studying different populations and different dosages and by using the drug in combination with other drugs.

Phase 4: Studies occurring after FDA has approved a drug for marketing, efficacy, or optimal use.

N/A
Lead Sponsor

The sponsor is the organization or person who oversees the clinical study and is responsible for analyzing the study data.

Family Health Centers of San Diego
Principal Investigator

The person who is responsible for the scientific and technical direction of the entire clinical study.

Christian Ramers, MDJob Godino, PhD
Principal Investigator Affiliation Family Health Centers of San DiegoFamily Health Centers of San Diego
Agency Class

Category of organization(s) involved as sponsor (and collaborator) supporting the trial.

Other
Overall Status Recruiting
Countries United States
Conditions

The disease, disorder, syndrome, illness, or injury that is being studied.

SARS-CoV-2 Acute Respiratory Disease, Myalgic Encephalomyelitis, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Post-acute Sequelae of SARS-COV-2 Infection, Post COVID-19 Condition
Additional Details

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.

Arms & Interventions

Arms

No Intervention: Control

The Control arm participates in monthly interactive webinars and quarterly short courses. Monthly interactive webinars will offer brief didactic presentations by SMEs, examples of models of care, and a facilitated Q&A. These webinars will be convened to rapidly disseminate findings and emerging best practices to a large-scale, national audience. Quarterly short courses will be developed to summarize key findings from past weekly teleECHO sessions. These quarterly short courses will be formatted as a learning module with the use of presentation slides and videos online that are accessible asynchronously.

Experimental: Intervention

The Intervention arm participates in weekly teleECHO sessions with monthly interactive webinars and quarterly short courses.

Interventions

Other: - Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes

ECHO is a technology enabled multi-disciplinary team-based care model centered on case-consultation and peer-to-peer sharing of emerging best practices (i.e., teleECHO) to support management of complex cases associated with Long COVID, ME/CFS, and other PIFI.

Contact a Trial Team

If you are interested in learning more about this trial, find the trial site nearest to your location and contact the site coordinator via email or phone. We also strongly recommend that you consult with your healthcare provider about the trials that may interest you and refer to our terms of service below.

Family Health Centers of San Diego, San Diego, California

Status

Recruiting

Address

Family Health Centers of San Diego

San Diego, California, 92102

Site Contact

Jane Samaniego, MS

[email protected]

619-515-2300