Finalist: Long COVID CARE (Customized Aid and Resource Explorer) by Olivia Hebner, et al

Posted by Health+ Long COVID (Admin) 7 months ago Posted in Healthathon Finalists

Long COVID CARE is an easily navigable web application that helps patients suffering from Long COVID to find treatment options provided by CMS-licensed healthcare professionals by inputting their specific symptoms and location.

The team: Olivia Hebner, Kathryn Cronquist, Kyle Crane, Scott Senkier, Quan Nguyen, Tyler Whitaker, Kyle Follendorf, Ashley Lucero, Bryan Stapleton, Catherine Sun, and Christian Tjoa

Project Case Study

BACKGROUND

Summit Consulting is a quantitative consulting and data analytics firm that works with public and commercial clients to turn data into actionable intelligence. For our submission, we selected Track 1: People First. 

A growing number of adults in the United States experience Long COVID, many of whom face barriers to finding and accessing the proper care. The United States Census Bureau Household Pulse Survey states that 17.6% of adults in the United States have experienced Long COVID. Further, of the adults who ever had COVID, 29.6% have experienced Long COVID. The Health+ Long COVID Report states that people suffering from Long COVID face many barriers to healthcare, including the person’s inability to easily identify healthcare providers to address their symptoms.

Summit Consulting’s solution, Long COVID Customized Aid and Resource Explorer (CARE), is a free-standing web application that removes patient barriers by providing access to care for Long COVID symptoms while also promoting disease awareness.

DATA

The Long COVID CARE application uses the following data sources:

• Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) National Doctors and Clinicians file

• Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Long COVID or Post-COVID Conditions page

• Federal Long COVID data from CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics

• Long COVID clinics in each state, collected by Summit Consulting

The CMS National Doctors and Clinicians dataset contains over 2.5 million CMS-registered providers at the clinician/enrollment record/group/address level. This publicly available dataset contains relevant information including each provider’s National Provider Identifier (NPI), name, geographic location, and specialty(s). This is considered the primary tool by which Long COVID CARE matches patients with providers near their location.

The CDC’s Long-Covid or Post-Covid Conditions page provides public information on symptoms commonly associated with Long COVID. The Long COVID CARE application crosswalks patient symptoms to CMS-registered providers with corresponding specialties. For example, patients experiencing headaches or dizziness will be matched with local neurologists as defined by the CMS National Doctors and Clinicians dataset.

Federal Long COVID data provides Long COVID statistics from the Household Pulse survey. The statistics provided within Long COVID CARE are based on the user’s location. Similarly, the Long COVID clinics information are aggregated for each state.

USING LONG COVID CARE

Users of the application begin by entering their address in the United States and selecting their Long COVID symptom(s) from a dropdown list. Available symptoms include general symptoms (e.g., respiratory and heart issues, neurological problems, digestive issues, and other symptoms associated with Long COVID (joint/muscle pain, rash/ changes in menstrual cycles). For the prototype, our team focused the application’s geographic bandwidth to the greater District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia (DMV) area.

After users select their active symptoms, Long COVID CARE ingests the data and returns a list and map of CMS-approved providers as well as Long COVID clinics that can provide appropriate treatment to address each symptom. This list of recommended providers is ranked by proximity to the user’s location and is located on the top right side of the application. The list also includes the facility name, address, telephone number, provider name, type of specialty, and the distance from the user’s address. The map with pins for the user’s location and for each provider’s location appears on the left side of the application.

Based on the user’s state, the application also populates four boxes with statistics from the Household Pulse Survey Long COVID data. These boxes are located in the bottom right side of the application and include the following statistics: the percent of adults who have contracted COVID, the percent of adults who have experienced Long COVID, the percent of adults who have had COVID and have also experienced Long COVID, and the percent of adults who are currently experiencing Long COVID.

Although Long COVID CARE is currently localized to the DMV area, our goal is to expand access to healthcare providers for individuals suffering from Long COVID across the entire United States. Long COVID CARE increases accessibility for patients by simplifying the first step of finding care, both for individual providers as well as Long COVID clinics. It may also reveal locations that currently do not have enough resources for an individual to get the care they need. We hope that our application can shed more light on healthcare access and inspire further research.

This post was edited on Sep 19, 2024 by Health+ Long COVID