Chronic Covid: why the Occitania region is at the forefront of patient care

The “unsatisfactory” care of patients with prolonged Covid in France was condemned in an opinion dated November 7, 2023 by the Committee for the Monitoring and Anticipation of Health Risks (COVERS). However, since the beginning of the epidemic, a person has worked on a path of favorable diagnosis and care for patients suffering from this disease. Dr. Jérôme Larche, a doctor at the Park Clinic in Montpellier, was one of the first to take an interest in the long-standing “medical wanderings” surrounding Covid, starting with an observation. “It was complicated to manage a new medical condition for which we had no certainty,” explains the doctor hurry up

“Care Pathway to Diagnosis in a Day”

He then delved into the subject and worked out “the most rational way to establish a care pathway.” And this is what he implemented in Montpellier, then in Occitany. “I set up a treatment course to be able to diagnose within a day,” he explains. The method works. It works so well that Jérôme Larche has been appointed to ARS Occitanie in the long-term covid context. Thanks to their work, the region becomes a laboratory to experiment with better patient reception. Occitanie is becoming a pilot region. With the key, “labeling 14 skill centers that allow to be able to diagnose, care for people with therapeutic means, rehabilitate and follow them in different departments of Occitanie”.

With the active support of ARS, Occitanie is the region that implemented this type of care pathway at the beginning of the epidemic and that developed it in a significant number of institutions. According to Dr. Larche, the advantage of this approach is “bringing together all the players to have joint skills, whether it’s community medicine, hospital, rehabilitation, speech therapy and many others. Others are still able to support these patients.”

A regional model that should become national

To adapt the offer in each department, coordination support systems (DAC) allow patients to be referred to skill centers. “Resource directories are created so that these patients in medically wandering or complex situations can access the most adopted prevention possible,” explains the Montpelier doctor.

This “multidisciplinary, regional, relatively dynamic and fluid” approach to care was popular and should now be implemented nationally. According to its creator, “it should be approved and implemented within a few weeks.” In agreement with the High Authority of Health, his model, which is currently limited to the region of Occitanie, should quickly become a national care pathway for chronic covid.