New York City-based Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center researchers created an emergency care redesign intervention that can improve care and outcomes of patients with dementia that visit the emergency department.
More than 50% of patients living with dementia and their caregivers visit the ED every year. These visits are often complicated by clinical difficulties identifying dementia cases, but the new strategy could alleviate that.
Published March 25 in Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, the strategy utilized three elements: specific problem identification tools, psychosocial considerations essential for triadic encounters and structured post-discharge follow-up. It also outlines core components for successful implementation and includes a training curriculum designed for all ED clinicians. The curriculum takes about an hour to complete.
“Some novel strategies have increased uptake by bringing community service representatives into the ED, which might be difficult to implement on a national scale,” authors said. “Emergency care redesign callers will be from that ED or health system, will have access to ED-visit EHR data, and are similar to current existing post-visit call strategies, which may increase uptake with more effective reinforcement of referral recommendations. By combining the strategies described above with innovative, practical training for ED providers aimed at changing attitudes, norms and behaviors, we may improve discharge processes and outcomes for patients living with dementia and their care partners.”
Find the full strategy breakdown here.
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