Home
About DAC-SP
Early Detection Blueprint
Case Studies
Grant Recipients
Resource Index
US Fellowship RFI
Contact
Home
About DAC-SP
Early Detection Blueprint
Case Studies
Grant Recipients
Resource Index
US Fellowship RFI
Contact
USA - Washington
Primary care providers (PCPs) urgently need concise training and practice tools to improve their ability to evaluate cognitive concerns and make a diagnosis of mild cognitive impairment and dementia. This diagnostic step is essential for increasing early detection of Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (ADRD). To meet this need, the University of Washington (UW) created the Cognition in Primary Care (CPC) program. The goal of this project was to implement an efficient set of CPC training and tools to increase cognitive assessments across a large and diverse network of primary care clinics across Western Washington which are affiliated with the UW Medicine health system.
The CPC quality improvement package consists of three integrated components: (1) concise-practical education training for PCPs, (2) checklist tools which are easily built into any electronic health record and (3) a box-kit folder primary care clinic-managers can use to provide PCPs with exam-room tools which are featured in the education sessions, allowing PCPs to easily put the training into practice. During the course of the project we refined the 3-part education series, enhancing PCPs' skills and confidence in diagnosing ADRD; we created electronic health record tools to guide PCPs through cognitive evaluations; and we made high-quality recordings of the CPC training so that they could be viewed on-demand as streaming video. Finally, we designed a box-kit to make it easy to remotely disseminate CPC to health systems across the United States.
1
2
3
4
Barak Gaster, MD
University of Washington, Director, co-PI
Jaqueline Raetz, MD
University ofWashington, Associate Director
Annette Fitzpatrick, PhD
University of Washington, co-PI
USA - Washington
Primary care providers (PCPs) urgently need concise training and practice tools to improve their ability to evaluate cognitive concerns and make a diagnosis of mild cognitive impairment and dementia. This diagnostic step is essential for increasing early detection of Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (ADRD). To meet this need, the University of Washington (UW) created the Cognition in Primary Care (CPC) program. The goal of this project was to implement an efficient set of CPC training and tools to increase cognitive assessments across a large and diverse network of primary care clinics across Western Washington which are affiliated with the UW Medicine health system.
The CPC quality improvement package consists of three integrated components: (1) concise-practical education training for PCPs, (2) checklist tools which are easily built into any electronic health record and (3) a box-kit folder primary care clinic-managers can use to provide PCPs with exam-room tools which are featured in the education sessions, allowing PCPs to easily put the training into practice. During the course of the project we refined the 3-part education series, enhancing PCPs' skills and confidence in diagnosing ADRD; we created electronic health record tools to guide PCPs through cognitive evaluations; and we made high-quality recordings of the CPC training so that they could be viewed on-demand as streaming video. Finally, we designed a box-kit to make it easy to remotely disseminate CPC to health systems across the United States.
The program led to a dramatic increase in (1) PCP confidence and self-reported ability to evaluate cognitive concerns, (2) frequency of cognitive assessments being documented in the electronic health record, and (3) rate of new ADRD-related diagnoses being made in the primary care setting. Not only were PCPs satisfied with the new workflow, but the UW Medicine health system was appreciative that the workflow did not require hiring any new staff, and the specialists in the system noticed improved throughput into their clinics, because patients referred to them already had more robust, appropriate work-up. The CPC program has now been packaged and made available for dissemination to other health systems around the country, including a partnership with the American Academy of Family Physicians to make the CPC package available to their 130,000 family physician members.
BG
Barak Gaster, MD
University of Washington, Director, co-PI
JR
Jaqueline Raetz, MD
University ofWashington, Associate Director
AF
Annette Fitzpatrick, PhD
University of Washington, co-PI
Gaster B, Suchsland MZ, Fitzpatrick A, Liao J, Belza B, Hsu A, McKiddy S, Park C, Olivari B, Singh A, Raetz J. Evaluating cognitive impairment in a large health care system: The Cognition in Primary Care Program. J of Alzheimer’s Disease. 2024;99(2):493-501.
Suchsland MZ, Gaster B, Raetz J, Belza B, McGuire L, Olivari B, Tracy K, Fitzpatrick AL. Developing a cognitive assessment toolkit for primary care: qualitativea ssessment of providers' needs and perceptions of usability in clinical practice. BMC Health Serv Res. 2023 Sep 19;23(1):1006.
Cognition in primary care site: Cognition-PrimaryCare.org
