COVID-19 Outcomes Research on Acute and Long-Term Health Events (CORAL) Initiative
HEXAGON's COVID-19 Outcomes Research on Acute and Long-Term Health Events (CORAL) initiative describes the acute and long-term clinical characteristics, simultaneous diseases or conditions (comorbidities), and outcomes of patients receiving in-hospital care for COVID-19 at Mayo Clinic.
The HEXAGON team reviews patient outcomes and hospital internal medicine practice models with the goals of:
- Describing patients' comorbidities — such as hypertension, obesity or diabetes — and clinical characteristics — such as fever, cough, low white blood cell count (lymphocytopenia) or ground-glass opacity on CT chest imaging
- Characterizing patients' acute, in-hospital adverse events and long-term (30-day and 90-day) emergency department visits, hospital readmissions and mortality
- Identifying best practices and harmonizing hospital internal medicine practice for patients with COVID-19 across Mayo Clinic
- Improving the understanding of differences in baseline characteristics and outcomes in patients admitted with COVID-19 symptoms versus patients without symptoms who are identified as having COVID-19 on routine screening during hospital admission
As part of the review, the study team looks at factors including geographic versus nongeographic clustering of patients with COVID-19, allocation of patients with COVID-19 to designated care teams versus shared responsibility across all care teams, use of video-based technology for communicating with patients during hospitalization. The team evaluates associations of these factors with in-hospital and post-discharge outcomes after 30 days and 90 days.
The CORAL study will provide hospitalists with insights into the characteristics and outcomes of patients with COVID-19, optimize hospital internal medicine practice for these patients, align care procedures across Mayo Clinic, inform use of video-based technology for patient care, and create a blueprint for future health system emergencies.