RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Identifying rheumatic disease patients at high risk and requiring shielding during the COVID-19 pandemic
JF Clinical Medicine
JO Clin Med
FD Royal College of Physicians
SP 256
OP 261
DO 10.7861/clinmed.2020-0149
VO 20
IS 3
A1 Price, Elizabeth
A1 MacPhie, Elizabeth
A1 Kay, Lesley
A1 Lanyon, Peter
A1 Griffiths, Bridget
A1 Holroyd, Christopher
A1 Abhishek, Abhishek
A1 Youngstein, Taryn
A1 Bailey, Kathryn
A1 Clinch, Jacqui
A1 Shaikh, Muddassir
A1 Rivett, Ali
YR 2020
UL http://www.rcpjournals.org/content/20/3/256.abstract
AB Rheumatology teams care for patients with diverse, systemic autoimmune diseases who are often immunosuppressed and at high risk of infections. The current COVID-19 pandemic has presented particular challenges in caring for and managing this patient group. The office of the chief medical officer (CMO) for England contacted the rheumatology community to provide expert advice on the identification of extremely vulnerable patients at very high risk during the COVID-19 pandemic who should be ‘shielded’. This involves the patients being asked to strictly self-isolate for at least 12 weeks with additional funded support provided for them to remain at home. A group of rheumatologists (the authors) have devised a pragmatic guide to identifying the very highest risk group using a rapidly developed scoring system which went live simultaneous with the Government announcement on shielding and was cascaded to all rheumatologists working in England.