DEVELOPMENT OF AN INTEGRATED REHABILITATION PATHWAY FOR INDIVIDUALS RECOVERING FROM COVID-19 IN THE COMMUNITY

Objective: COVID-19 is a multisystem illness with considerable long-term physical, psychological, cognitive, social and vocational sequelae in survivors. The aim of this study is to describe the development of an integrated rehabilitation pathway using tele medicine approach to manage these sequelae in a systematic and efficient way. Methods: A multidisciplinary team of professionals used a consensus method to define pathway referral criteria based on the COVID-19 Yorkshire Rehabilitation Screen (C19-YRS) telephone screening tool developed previously by the team. Specialists needed for the pathway to operate were also decided. Results: A rehabilitation pathway, which spans the acute hospital trust, community trust and primary care service within the UK National Health Service (NHS) service model was developed. C19-YRS referral criteria thresholds for informing the decision making process were defined. A dedicated multidisciplinary COVID-19 rehabilitation team is responsible for dealing with the management of complex cases with needs spanning across multiple domains of the health condition. Conclusion: An integrated COVID-19 rehabilitation pathway based on our previously published C19-YRS tool is proposed. Future research is needed for validation of the pathway. We recommend health services dealing with the pandemic to adopt such a pathway to manage the care of the COVID-19 survivors in the community.