Post-COVID Recovery Care

Are you a B.C. health-care provider wondering about supports for patients living with persistent and disabling post-COVID symptoms?

The Post-COVID-19 Interdisciplinary Clinical Care Network can help. The Network offers clinical care, patient and provider education, and research to health-care providers caring for patients experiencing post-COVID symptoms.

February 2023 Update: Evolving the model of care to meet patient needs

This page provides health-care providers with a centralized resource for the latest evidence and recommendations for managing post-COVID symptoms.

For a visual of a long COVID patient’s care pathway: Long COVID patient care pathway (PDF)

Clinical care

Rapid access to specialist consultation line

Rapid Access to Specialist Consultation (RACE) app: urgent questions that require a call back within 2 hours. RACE is staffed Monday to Friday, 9 a.m.-5 p.m. The specialty is listed as "COVID – GIM Post Infection Care".

eCase

Electronic Consultative Access to Specialist Expertise (eCASE): e-consults within seven days. Users can submit questions, patient history and attachments via a secure messaging app. The specialty is listed as "Post-COVID-19 Care".

Referral process

1. To refer a patient to the Post COVID-19 Interdisciplinary Clinical Care Network (the Network), please fill out the referral form (PDF) and fax it to 604-806-8809.

You can refer patients with persistent symptoms for more than three (3) months following a presumed or confirmed COVID-19 illness. Symptoms must be limiting your patient's ability to function in daily life.

Note: You must complete a full history, physical examination and relevant investigations as part of differential diagnoses and to rule out other conditions explaining the symptoms. Please review the Pre-Referral Diagnostic Checklist for required investigations prior to referral.

2. A nurse from the Post-COVID Recovery Clinic will contact your patient directly to review and assess their case. The nurse will determine the appropriate level of services required to support your patient's recovery.

The Post-COVID Recovery Clinic supports patients with group education, rehabilitation supports and self-recovery tools. It does not provide diagnostic or investigative services. Please advise your patients accordingly.

Clinical services

Once accepted into the Network, your patient will be assessed by a specialist nurse, then based on symptoms, receive immediate access to the most appropriate self-management supports and group learning opportunities based on individual needs and what makes sense for each.

Where assessment identifies need for a physician consultation as part of the patient's journey, provincial clinic staff will facilitate this, whether it be for more general medicine needs or sub-specialist needs.

Patients in the clinic will be presented with opportunities to get involved in research. More information can be found on our PC-ICCN Research page.

Post-COVID recovery clinics

The Post-COVID Recovery Clinics provide coordinated in person or virtual care. Patients will see a general internal medicine specialist at their initial appointment. Other members of the care team include:

Doctors
Nurses
Physiotherapists
Occupational therapists
Social workers
Specialist doctors (e.g. neurologists, cardiologists etc). are available by referral

Follow-up appointments will be with post-COVID case managers (registered nurses) and the allied health team.

Patients in the clinics will be presented with opportunities to get involved in research. More information can be found on our PC-ICCN Research page.

For information: post-COVID-ICCN@phsa.ca

Education/resources

BC ECHO for Post-COVID Recovery

Free, virtual learning community.
Twelve one-hour sessions.
Instructive and case-based learning
Learn approaches to care for your post-COVID patients.

Sessions ran from July 2021 till July 2022. To view the session recordings, visit the BC ECHO page.

"It provided me with a better understanding of likely experience of clients & how to support them in recovery" – BC ECHO participant

If you are looking for the Provincial Mental Health and Substance Use ECHO, please visit their homepage.

Provincial Post-COVID-19 Recovery Pathway

This pathway is posted as a tool on BC Pathways. Please note that some of the links are internal on Pathways and will require a login to access. Download the PDF version below.Provincial Post-COVID-19 Recovery Pathway

Additional resources for clinicians

Mental Health in "Long-COVID" – Two-page PDF resource for GPs produced by PC-ICCN
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) Skills Group and Referral Information (website): MSP-covered, physician-led CBT skills program
COVID-19 Clinician Resources - Collection from the American Thoracic Society, including post COVID-19 recovery and care (website)
Inventory of best evidence syntheses by COVID-END – The COVID-19 Evidence Network to Support Decision-making compiles 'best' evidence on COVID-19 public health measures, clinical management and health system arrangements (website)
Post-COVID Conditions: Information from Healthcare Providers (website)
Long COVID - an update for primary care: Practice pointer from British Medical Journal (Sept 2022)
Primary Care Guidelines: Approach to Assessment and Management of Long-term COVID-19 Symptoms: British Columbia Primary Care Guidelines (Aug 2021)
The X-Change: Post COVID-19 Recovery Rehab and Persistent Symptoms - Interior Health (April 2021)
The Journey to Recovery - Post-COVID-19 Care in BC - Webinar from members of the Post-COVID-19 Recovery Clinic team in Vancouver (Jan 2021)
The BC Centre for Disease Control (BCCDC) is working with provincial and federal partners on surveillance, diagnostic testing and infection control measures for the COVID-19 outbreak. Visit the BCCDC website for information for health-care professionals and public health partners.

Purpose of resources

Post-COVID 19 Interdisciplinary Clinical Care Network resources and guidelines are designed to support equitable, best practice care for people living with long COVID. The materials can be divided into two main categories:

Resources to support people living with long COVID in their recovery.
Resources and guidelines to support health care providers caring for people living with long COVID.

Post-COVID-19 Interdisciplinary Clinical Care Network clinical staff developed and reviewed the guidelines and resources based on the best information available at the time of publication. Refer to www.phsa.ca/postCOVID for the most recent versions.

Restrictions on guideline use

Post-COVID-19 Interdisciplinary Clinical Care Network guidelines and resources can be downloaded for personal, clinical, non-commercial use only. No reproduction by or for commercial organizations, or for commercial purposes, is allowed without the permission of the Post-COVID-19 Interdisciplinary Clinical Care Network. To request permission, e-mail post-COVID-ICCN@phsa.ca.

When referencing one of Post-COVID-19 Interdisciplinary Clinical Care Network’s guidelines or resources, use the following format: Name of guideline/resource, year. Available from: www.phsa.ca/postCOVID.

Research

The Post-COVID-19 Interdisciplinary Clinical Care Network coordinates patient-oriented research that leads to rapid learning and data-sharing to improve care. There are opportunities for both researchers and patients to get involved in post-COVID research to support people living with symptoms.

For Researchers

For Patients

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