Program Area: Health Sciences

Excursions into Healthcare Systems to Help Informal Caregivers Manage Dementia

Chair(s)

• RF

  Richard Fortinsky, PhD, FGSA

  Professor and Health Net, Inc. Endowed Chair in Geriatrics and Gerontology
  Medicine
  University of Connecticut Center on Aging
  Farmington, Connecticut, United States

Discussant(s)

• CC

  Christopher Callahan, MD

  Professor of Medicine
  Medicine
  Indiana University School of Medicine, IU Center for Aging Research
  Indianapolis, Indiana, United States

Individual Symposium Abstract First Author(s)

• RF

  Richard Fortinsky, PhD, FGSA

  Professor and Health Net, Inc. Endowed Chair in Geriatrics and Gerontology
  Medicine
  University of Connecticut Center on Aging
  Farmington, Connecticut, United States
• 

  Hillary Lum, MD, PhD (she/her/hers)

  Associate Professor of Medicine
  School of Medicine
  University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus
  Aurora, Colorado, United States
• QS

  Quincy Samus, PhD, MS

  Associate Professor
  Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
  Johns Hopkins School of Medicine
  Baltimore, Maryland, United States

With the establishment in 2019 of the National Institute on Aging-funded IMPACT Collaboratory, the era of designing and implementing pragmatic clinical trials in partnership with health care systems to improve care and health-related outcomes for people living with dementia (PLWD) is well underway. An important focus for Collaboratory-funded work involves targeting and engaging family and other informal caregivers of PLWD across health care system settings. In this Symposium, we feature three Collaboratory-funded investigators who are partnering with health care systems to determine how to engage informal caregivers most pragmatically, with the goals of improving caregivers’ capacity to manage dementia and provide sustained input into the clinical care of PLWD. Symposium presenters Quincy Samus and Hillary Lum are the first two Collaboratory-funded Health Care System Scholars and Richard Fortinsky is a pilot study awardee. Dr. Samus will present on her experiences and lessons learned in her multiple efforts to adapt and embed the MIND at Home family-focused care management model into health care systems, including her current work with a large managed care organization. Dr. Lum will explain ongoing capacity-building stakeholder engagement activities at a large academic health system in preparation for pragmatic clinical trials for PLWD and their caregivers. Dr. Fortinsky will present on experiences and lessons learned from ongoing efforts to identify caregivers of PLWD to join caregiver support programs, and store caregiver data electronically, in two health system outpatient care settings. Dr. Christopher Callahan, Leader of the Training Core for the Collaboratory, will serve as Symposium Discussant.

Presentations:

• 12:00 PM – 1:30 PM ET

  Pilot Study to Pragmatically Embed Caregiver Dementia Education and Support in Health Care Systems
  

  Individual Symposium Abstract First Author: Richard H. Fortinsky, PhD, FGSA – University of Connecticut Center on Aging
• 12:00 PM – 1:30 PM ET

  Building Capacity for Dementia Caregiver Tools and Pragmatic Trials Through Stakeholder Engagement
  

  Individual Symposium Abstract First Author: Hillary Lum, MD, PhD (she/her/hers) – University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus
• 12:00 PM – 1:30 PM ET

  Flexibility Meets Complexity: Lessons From Embedding a Dementia Care Coordination Model in Practice
  

  Individual Symposium Abstract First Author: Quincy Samus, PhD, MS – Johns Hopkins School of Medicine