New resource for Long Covid-19 sufferers and clinicians
4 March 2021
A digital assessment and monitoring tool, designed to help manage individuals with Long COVID, has been developed by UK-based digital health company, ELAROS 24/7 Ltd, working closely with clinical researchers at The University of Leeds.
Long COVID is a term used to describe a new and emerging condition faced by patients presenting with symptoms that develop during or after contracting COVID-19 and persist for more than 4 weeks according to NICE. The syndrome is still not yet fully understood, with symptoms of breathlessness, cough and severe fatigue being amongst the most prevalent symptoms. The World Health Organisation estimates there have 114 million confirmed cases of (acute) COVID-19 as of March 1st, with the Office for National Statistics estimating that around 20% of patients testing positive for COVID-19 exhibit symptoms for a period of 5 weeks or longer and around 10% of patients testing positive for COVID-19 exhibit symptoms for a period of 12 weeks or longer
C19-YRS is a validated screening tool to assess the severity of common persistent symptoms identified in patients after contracting COVID-19, also known as ‘long COVID’ or ‘post-COVID syndrome’. The original paper-based tool was developed by clinical academics at The University of Leeds following research across the West Yorkshire region and has been recommended for routine use by NHS England. The tool has since been updated by the clinical team and developed into a digital app by UK-based digital health company, ELAROS, to support healthcare organisations by enhancing their service delivery and providing anonymised data to The University of Leeds to further validate the scale and develop a robust psychometric measure of the condition
The paper-based self-report version has been adopted by NHS Trusts across the UK and has been recommended for routine use by NHS England at first assessment, 6 weeks and 6 months to monitor Long COVID symptoms. The tool has also been recognised by NICE in their rapid guidelines for managing the long-term effects of COVID-19, warranting further validation of the scale. Research underpinning the C19-YRS’ development can be found published in the ACNR and JRM and is endorsed by the British Society for Rehabilitation Medicine.
ELAROS’ C19-YRS boasts a secure web portal for clinicians to set up and manage patients to assist with the initial triage, assessment and short-to-long-term monitoring process using graded scores for a spectrum of symptoms and grouped scores for symptom severity, functional disability and overall health. Extensive reporting tools help support health organisations better deploy, evidence and account for the complex mix of resources used for long COVID patients.
Patients can access the questionnaire following referral from their healthcare professional, available on iOS and Android or any internet web browser, allowing them to track their condition with a quantitative assessment of improvement or deterioration. The platform seeks to improve patient outcomes, clinical intervention methods and help to understand long COVID as a condition by providing The University of Leeds’ research team with anonymised data to further validate the scale and develop a robust measure of the condition.
Medipex have been providing business support and advice for many years to Elaros 24/7 and are delighted to support this latest initiative which delivers a new resource in the NHS fight against COVID19.