– Patient-centred interprofessional teleconsultation for post-viral symptom complexes –
The consequences of coronavirus disease (SARS-CoV-2 infection), often referred to as long COVID or post-COVID, pose major challenges for those affected and for the healthcare system. Even after the pandemic, many patients suffer from persistent and varied symptoms such as fatigue, breathing difficulties and concentration problems for months. The current version of the S1 guideline ‘Long/Post-Covid’ emphasises that the pathogenesis (course of symptoms) has not yet been clarified and varies from patient to patient. To date, no biomarkers or specific testing and treatment methods have been established to clearly identify affected patients and provide them with medical care.
A cross-sector, interdisciplinary and long-term intervention is therefore crucial. This is where the COVICare-M-V research project comes in. It is a model project funded by the Federal Ministry of Health and run by Rostock University Medical Centre with the aim of organising low-threshold access to professional diagnostics and sustainably improving the care of patients with long or post-COVID in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.
The central component of the integrated healthcare research project is a video consultation with the Long COVID outpatient clinic at Rostock University Medical Centre via telemedicine. The telemedicine service is available to participating general practitioners (intervention arm) from the Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania region. To better coordinate the video consultations, a digital appointment coordination system has been implemented.
Together with the research team at the Institute of General Medicine in Rostock, MEYTEC has developed a digital platform for recording study-relevant data (questionnaires and medical test results) and vital signs measurements. The participating medical practices have been equipped with MEYCARE® mobile equipment sets for this purpose. The set has the necessary measuring components, secure access to the digital data collection platform and a powerful mobile phone connection (multi-SIM). The MEYCARE® set can thus be used both in the practice and during home visits. The optimal user experience is achieved through user-friendly data entry (touchscreen) and automatic transfer of measurement data to the documentation via Bluetooth, among other things.
By the end of 2025, the first study participants had been equipped with MEYCARE® sets and instructed in the use of the technical components.
Further information about COVICare-M-V Project:
tropen.med.uni-rostock.de/forschung/covicare-mv
Publikations:
Patient-centred interprofessional teleconsultation for post-viral symptom complexes in German primary care-protocol for the cluster-randomised controlled COVI-Care M-V trial
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40926236/