Execution Readiness

Identify the staff needed for your early detection program for cognitive impairment, in addition to the leadership roles identified in Goal 4. Consider the following roles:

• Administrators across all system levels (e.g., healthcare administrators, medical managers, population health managers, etc.);
• Healthcare providers (e.g., primary care providers, physician assistants, nurses, etc.);
• Brain health navigators (e.g., a designated role to coordinate the care needs of referred patients and develop comprehensive plans to manage care delivery across the patient care journey);
• Other relevant clinical departmental leaders (e.g., neurology, psychiatry, gerontology, etc.); and,
• Quality Improvement (QI) professionals.

Using what you outlined in your program proposal in Goal 2, further define the roles and responsibilities of your staff.

• Create job descriptions and interview templates.
• Finalize your staffing budget and identify a hiring timeline for team members.

Note: Several flagship sites identified team members within their organizations or from external partners to engage in their early detection program for cognitive impairment. By using existing staff members, they did not need to hire as many new team members from outside the organization.

Building on the governance structure created for the core leadership team in Goal 4, create a nested governance structure for your program team.

• Create an organizational chart to indicate governance, feedback mechanisms, and reporting structures between team members.
• Establish a communications timeline and schedule across levels of program team and stakeholders to communicate progress. Include a regular meeting cadence and identify the methods for communicating updates.

A community advisory board (also known as a patient and family advisory board) may complement your project team by providing a patient and family perspective.

• Create an organizational chart to indicate governance, feedback mechanisms, and reporting structures between team members.
• Establish a communications timeline and schedule across levels of program team and stakeholders to communicate progress. Include a regular meeting cadence and identify the methods for communicating updates.

• Review the clinical workflows and responsibility flowcharts from Goal 8 to determine which staff need training.
• Determine what training materials you need, including protocols, workflows, cognitive assessment tools, disclosure, billing, health record documentation, data collection and management, and hand-offs.
• Consider the training platform, language requirements, and accessibility needs. When possible, use existing tools and platforms to reduce the learning curve.
• Ensure the training plan includes your approach and timeline for initial staff training, a process for training for new hires, and a procedure for reskilling or subsequent training in the event of staff deviation from the standardized workflows.
• Elicit feedback from the clinical, operational, and managerial team leads and adjust your training plan as needed.

• Bring in Subject Matter Experts and vendors to support the training material development for reimbursement processes, clinical practice, and technology.
• Provide continuous support beyond the initial training session. Through regular check-ins and feedback loops with the teams, gather feedback on any gaps in the training and offer coaching where needed.

• Create flowcharts to indicate the responsibilities and interaction of roles. Processes that require workflows may include methods for cognitive assessment; managing cognitive assessment tools; and patient recruitment, screening, and consent.
• Collaboratively develop the workflows with the healthcare team to ensure they are feasible and repeatable.

• Outline the step-by-step process of disclosing the results to patients and their caregivers. This process should include who will deliver the results, when and where the disclosure will take place, and how the information will be communicated. Recognize that each patient’s situation is unique, and the disclosure process should be tailored to meet their specific needs and cultural background.
• Ensure that the staff involved in disclosing the results are adequately trained to interpret the assessment outcomes accurately.
• Establish consistent and standardized data sharing practices to avoid interoperability issues.