At the initiative of the Dutch College of General Practitioners (NHG), the Federation of Medical Specialists and the Dutch Lung Alliance (LAN), the multidisciplinary guideline Long-term complaints after COVID-19 was developed. A total of 26 healthcare field parties were actively involved in the development of the guideline, including C-support. Selma Tromp, neurologist and board member of the Federation of Medical Specialists: “A valuable collaboration in which many different areas of expertise were brought together and all parties made every effort to realise this guideline as quickly as possible.”
Minister Kuipers of VWS received the guideline on March 22, 2022. "This guideline helps healthcare providers to better guide and treat patients with long-term complaints after corona. It also promotes the recognition and acknowledgement of this disease, so very important! It is great to see how this has been worked on multidisciplinarily by various parties," said the minister.
The guideline focuses a lot on coordination and cooperation between healthcare providers. It shows the most optimal way to treat Long (Long-term) COVID patients. Input from experts by experience provided the patient perspective for this guideline. General practitioners and medical specialists have jointly examined when patients should go to the general practitioner or to the hospital. For secondary care, it also describes how the patient's health status can be mapped out. In addition, it discusses which specialisms are preferably involved in the multidisciplinary consultation.
Recommendations
The guideline 'Long-term complaints after COVID-19' answers questions about diagnostics, guidance and treatment of patients with long-term corona complaints and patient information. Based on the latest insights, it describes the care for patients who have complaints for more than four weeks after a corona infection, such as fatigue, shortness of breath, reduced sense of smell or taste, problems with movement and concentration problems. It discusses which additional diagnostics are useful, and when a patient is eligible for paramedical recovery care or psychological care.
“There is a great need for tools on this subject on the work floor,” says pulmonologist Monique Reijers, who was involved in the development of the guideline as one of the working group chairs. “We want to offer these patients the best possible care with the knowledge we have now.” Jako Burgers, general practitioner and professor of the Dutch College of General Practitioners, adds: “We certainly don’t know everything yet, a lot of research is still needed. We will continue to learn in the coming period and we will include the new knowledge and experiences in updates to the guideline.”
For the patient
The patient perspective has been given an important place, both in the guideline and in the development of patient information. Thuisarts.nl and soon on Coronaplein.nu contains information from the guideline in understandable language: eight situations are described that you as a patient may encounter after COVID-19.
About the directive
The guideline is intended for healthcare providers and can be found on the NHG guidelines website and as part of the COVID-19 guideline on the Guideline Database of the Federation of Medical Specialists. The Knowledge Institute of the Federation of Medical Specialists and the NHG supervised the process, with funding from ZonMw and the Foundation for Quality Funds for Medical Specialists. An e-learning for healthcare professionals about this guideline will soon be available and a webinar will be organized.
