UCLA Alzheimer’s and Dementia Care Program: Creating a Sustainable Model for National Dissemination

Challenge

An estimated 6.9 million Americans live with Alzheimer’s Disease, the most common form of dementia. Many of those affected need comprehensive care to address complications associated with the disease and to support family caregivers who provide care to older adults with dementia. Yet comprehensive dementia care is not widely available.

The UCLA Alzheimer’s and Dementia Care Program (ADC Program) is a model for providing comprehensive dementia care through collaborations between primary care providers and nurse practitioners or physician assistants with special training in dementia care. The model has shown clinical benefits, health care utilization improvements, and cost savings. This project developed a sustainable model and disseminated the program to an additional 50 sites.

Key Activities

The project carried out the following activities:

• Launched a National Dementia Care Collaborative of sites adopting or considering adopting the ADC that EDC continues to lead
• Developed and implemented a sustainable model for widely disseminating the ADC Program
• Created a fully operational ADC Dissemination Center based at UCLA
• Promoted payment models for insurers to cover the costs of administering the ADC Program
• Encouraged health systems to participate in Medicare’s Guiding and Improved Dementia Experience (GUIDE) Model for alternative payments
• Educated advanced practice providers to fulfill dementia care specialist roles and bring enhanced dementia care skills to their existing roles

Our Impact

This project:

• Provided training and technical assistance to over 50 sites and improve care for thousands of people with dementia and their care partners
• Increased ADC Program implementation to 50 additional diverse sites across the United States
• Promoted health plan payment models that cover the costs of administering comprehensive dementia care models