The Society of Hospital Medicine (SHM) is a medical society comprised of hospitalists that exists to promote exceptional care for hospitalized patients.
The clinical presentation and progression of COVID-19 in patients is highly variable.1 The COVID-19 virus has evolved with each variant and so has treatment according to disease severity. Frontline hospitalists require guidance and support in evaluating patients at risk for worse outcomes from the COVID-19 virus.
The National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) Treatment Guidelines were first published in 2020 and the guidelines were recently updated in February of 2024. The guidelines provide a description for the evaluation and stratification of patients according to their risk of infection and severity of illness. SHM developed the resources below to support optimal patient outcomes for acutely ill patients with COVID-19, by providing evidence-based guidance to rapidly assess progression of symptoms and illness as well as identify appropriate treatment strategies.
1 Struyf, T. et al. Signs and symptoms to determine if a patient presenting in primary care or hospital outpatient settings has COVID-19 disease. Cochrane Database Syst. Rev. https://doi.org/10.1002/14651858.CD013665 (2020).
The learning materials include:
The discussion guide includes diverse clinical scenarios pertaining to hospitalized patients with COVID-19 and describes the evidence-base for specific care pathways according to the NIH Treatment Guidelines.
The brief module may be used in conjunction with the discussion guide to support the hospitalist in assessing disease progression and defining a care plan for hospitalized patients with COVID-19.
The resource may be used by the hospital care team to explain a patient’s diagnosis, treatment options, and instructions for follow-up upon discharge from the hospital.
The development of these resources was supported by funding from Gilead Sciences.
