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P03 - Dementia Safety Screening Tool for Home-Based Primary Care


Purpose: Receiving a diagnosis of dementia is only the beginning of how the disease will impact a patient and his/her support system. There are 5.5 million persons with dementia in the United States, and 81% of them live in the community.

Rationale: Clinicians seeing patients with home-based primary care programs are in a unique position to assess the medical and social effects of dementia on patients and support systems. Quality improvement metrics are implemented to document basic minimum standards but do not always translate into improved quality of care for patients.

Supporting literature: The 2019 Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) clinical quality measure for dementia requires documented safety concern screening in two domains of risk: 1) dangerousness to self or others and 2) environmental risks, as well as documentation of recommendations. No standardized safety screening tool exists for this measure.

Interventions: Two clinicians developed questions for a dementia safety screening tool (DSST) that was integrated into the charting system to ensure data was recorded in a reportable manner. The DSST records if a patient has 24-hour supervision, transfers independently, and has any of eight other risk factors such as fall risk, food insecurity, medication safety hazards, etc. After clinicians learned to use the DSST, a monthly report was generated to analyze use and flag patients for intervention. A workflow was developed for the practice’s registered nurse case managers (RNCM) and licensed clinical social workers (LCSW) to intervene for these at-risk patients.

Outcomes: Clinicians screened 85% of established patients with dementia in four months. One identified risk factor triggers an interprofessional coordination with standardized interventions via phone or house call based on risks identified.

Applicability to practice: The DSST is quick and easy to use, which increased buy-in from clinicians. Increasingly, clinicians are tasked to check a box in the patients’ electronic health records but doing so does not always improve patient care. The DSST is the first step of a standardized process in which high-risk patients receive interprofessional coordination, improving the quality of care for our homebound patients. 

Speaker(s):

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Evelyn Jones-Talley
9/20/20 12:01 pm

Think this is awesome. Time management and assured follow up is a win-win.

Patricia Kenny
9/22/20 2:19 pm

I am going to Consider adding some safety cues cues listed to our initial hbpc visit. For ex, we note falls but not specifically wandering, we would gather that info hopefully but having cues in emr would help. Thank you

Karen Farnum
9/22/20 5:36 pm

Appreciate your work. On point. Very much needed.

Dena Christianson
9/23/20 9:08 am

Very helpful to assess in the home setting!

Patricia Vermeersch
9/23/20 2:42 pm

Would love to see this tool. Can you send a copy to review to me at pat.vermeersch@axesspointe.org If it is copyrighted, just let me know.

Ladsine Taylor
9/24/20 4:45 pm

Excellent QI project and presentation. What steps are required if someone wanted to use your tool in their facility's home base primary care setting? Ladsine Taylor( ladsinetaylor@gmail.com)