|
Minnesota Memory Care Initiative
The Minnesota Board on
Aging and Department of Human Services, together with a number of
partnering organizations are developing and funding a group of innovative
programs collectively referred to as the Minnesota Memory Care Initiative.
The purpose of the Initiative is to dramatically improve the memory care
competency among health care organizations and community care services
throughout Minnesota. Initial experience suggests that the impetus for
improved approaches to memory problems does not have to come from large
healthcare organizations nor be community-wide to start, rather individual
champions within a single medical clinic, working with committed
community-based programs can achieve significant improvements in care.
BACKGROUND
The State of Minnesota has
a formal legislative mandate to rebalance long term care in the state from
institutional settings into community settings. Considerable progress has
been made and nearly 10,000 nursing facility beds have been removed from
the system statewide since 1997 (21% of capacity).
The most frequent reasons for permanent nursing facility placement include
cognitive disability, difficult behaviors, family caregiver exhaustion,
and recurrent exacerbations of chronic health conditions.
-
Persons with AD are 5 times as likely to be
admitted to nursing homes and are admitted for much longer lengths of
stay.
-
Total Medicare costs are 3 times higher for
consumers with dementia ($13,207 vs. $4,454)
Minnesota has received funding to improve the
care of dementia related family situations through the Administration on
Aging's (AoA) Alzheimer's Disease Demonstration Grants to States.
Significant additional state funding has supplemented this federal project
through the Community Services/Services Development grant program.
Decisions were made over the last two years to build this developing
statewide memory care initiative around the framework, which evolved
within the national demonstration entitled, Chronic Care Networks for
Alzheimer's Disease (CCN/AD). More than six individual programs arrived at
the consensus decision that the framework and tools from the earlier
demonstration would meet the needs of their communities with a minimum of
adaptation. This decision facilitated faster start-up for new projects and
gives the sponsoring partners of the Initiative confidence that a
standardized approach and tools can be used for replication of activities
across the state—at least to start. (Find additional information and
replication tools under the Replication Materials tab)
The elements of this
framework include:
-
Training of a broad array of health and community care personnel to
identify behaviors that are signs of possible dementia.
-
Capacity to conduct an
initial dementia
assessment
that allows a
physician to make a diagnosis. The physician’s office can conduct the
assessment on it own, or it can cooperate with community partners to do
elements of the assessment.
-
Comprehensive care management blueprints allow a local program to
insure that the ongoing support for each family affected by dementia
takes important issues into account, but is customized to fit with local
resources.
-
Training and support for families
that allows the development of the skills and knowledge to provide the
best care possible.
Each of these elements
is supported with tools and materials so that a new memory care effort can
start from a strong base and focus on customizing their approach for their
community rather than “reinventing the wheel” while preparing to offer
their new service.
EVIDENCE TO SUPPORT THE INITIATIVE
An analysis by experienced researchers has been conducted on the pilot
activities of the developing initiative. This together with the formal
reports of the evaluation of the underlying CCN/AD demonstration* have
provided significant encouragement that a statewide initiative for
improved identification and better community-based care for memory
problems is attainable.
In conducting the analysis, Kenneth Hepburn, Ph.D., reviewed related
memory care programs and demonstrations both within Minnesota and across
the country and sought to take the evidence available about outcomes that
might be generalizable to the Initiative He also gave greater weight to
the learnings from other communities that possess healthcare and community
services systems like Minnesota’s.
The results of the analysis and its recommendations are suggestive only;
therefore, work is currently underway to evaluate the existing projects
within the Administration on Aging grant and to use these data to form the
basis for a major evaluation on the entire Initiative in the future.
ANTICIPATED USEFULNESS OF THIS WEB SITE
Minnesota Memory Care Initiative sponsors and partners will continually
update this web site with additional tools and materials, research
findings and innovative program ideas. Content will be chosen to be
practical and tested in Initiative settings. Readers who have developed
–or are developing—memory care programs in their own communities are
invited to submit your suggestions and examples through the contact us tab
in order to allow us to communicate further with you about our common
goals for memory care improvement.
|
Return to