Winning Solution: Patient-Centered Monitoring and Intervention During the COVID-19 Pandemic

To mitigate the risk posed by the COVID-19 pandemic on solid organ transplant patients, it was critical to develop a practical, scalable, and sustainable process to identify and track kidney transplant patients with COVID-19. Given the rapid increase in the number of affected individuals, limitations in terms of resources, and limited understanding of the optimal treatment strategies at the outset, it was imperative to establish a clear, systematic, and protocolized method for care. We developed a comprehensive data-driven approach that facilitates data collection as an integral part of our workflows. This allowed us to evaluate our processes of care and refine our approach to care for COVID-19-affected patients in an iterative manner.

Aggregating COVID-19 tests and proactive patient assessment Results from tests performed within the organization were available in the medical record, while external tests were initially captured through an electronic HIPAA-compliant questionnaire software tool and transcribed into discrete fields within the medical record. The questionnaire was posted on the transplant intranet site and sent via email on a daily basis for team members to enter information. Fields captured patient demographics including name, date of birth, transplant date, as well as the date and result of SARS-CoV-2 PCR test and test location.

Data summarization and outcomes sharing Internal and external SARS-CoV-2 PCR test results were abstracted and linked with other clinical information about the patients from their medical records, including age, race, ethnicity, blood type, comorbidities, hospitalization details (if applicable), and treatments received. Analyses included a calculation of test positivity rate, hospitalizations, need for intensive care unit (ICU) admission, hospital length of stay, time to COVID-19 after transplant, and outcomes including disease resolution or mortality. These metrics were displayed on a data visualization dashboard on the secure intranet site and could only be accessed by the transplant team.

Our multidisciplinary team was comprised of clinicians, administrative staff, individuals from information technology, and transplant analytics — all of whom collaborated to develop a workflow; create tools to capture, display and disseminate information; and report on outcomes for continuous improvements. Staffing to facilitate the patient-facing interactions in the workflow was accomplished through an internal redeployment of transplant program team members. For example, our pre-transplant staff was responsible for triaging more than 100 phone calls per day from patients who were experiencing COVID-19 symptoms or were known to have tested positive and who were being managed at home.

Tools such as the survey were created by leveraging existing software at the organization or available via open sources and an existing transplant service secure intranet site, called the “Transplant Community Toolbox,” was used to store all documents, resources, plans, and the data visualizations.

The work that we conducted to implement structured workflows to aggregate COVID-19 data, proactively assess kidney transplant patients for COVID-19, and manage kidney transplant recipients with suspected or confirmed COVID-19 was nimble. It would be possible to expand and translate this model to different settings.

Demetra Tsapepas, PharmD, MBA, BCPS, FAST is a Clinical Pharmacy Manager at New York-Presbyterian.