Banner Alzheimer’s Institute is offering a virtual training and mentoring program for Arizona physicians and other primary care professionals to help them effectively treat patients with cognitive disorders, including Alzheimer’s and related dementias.
The Dementia ECHO (Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes) is a free 12-week "tele-mentoring" course with sessions once every two weeks. The program aims to help medical providers feel more confident about caring for their patients and caregivers living with dementia. The course will begin on Jan. 24.
“As a primary care and palliative physician, I have found the ECHO program to be an incredibly valuable resource,” said Dr. Sam Downing, who specializes in outpatient palliative medicine in Prescott. “It is refreshing to have ready access to experts in the field of dementia care, with cutting-edge information and research presented regularly.”
For each one-hour session, program participants will connect virtually with instructors/mentors who specialize in Alzheimer’s and related dementias. Each session will include brief lectures to share evidence-based practices in care across a range of topics such as: evaluating dementia; medications; behavior management; disease progression; caregiver support; conveying diagnoses, prognoses and managing difficult issues such as driving, advance directives and end-of-life care. In addition, participants will have the opportunity to present their challenging patient cases (de-identified) for expert advice and discussion.
More than 6 million Americans have dementia and as the proportion of older adults continues to grow in Maricopa County, more Arizonans will be living with Alzheimer’s and related dementias. Maricopa County alone has approximately 81,000 people living with Alzheimer’s, according to Axios.
Project ECHO, initially developed by the New Mexico Health Science Center, is intended to help lessen these burdens on primary providers while elevating their expertise in specialty care. Banner Alzheimer’s Dementia ECHO launched in 2020 with plans to expand across Banner Health and other health systems, and to attract care providers from a range of disciplines in diverse and underserved communities.
“For patients and families, delayed detection and management of dementia results in worse outcomes, higher caregiver stress levels, and fragmented, often redundant care,” said Dr. Ganesh Gopalakrishna, associate clinical medical director for Banner Alzheimer’s Institute’s Stead Family Memory Center in Phoenix. “For the health care system, a shortage of specialists in this field places a heavier burden on other providers to manage care of these patients.”
Medical professionals interested in participating should contact BAIECHO@BannerHealth.com. Learn more at bannerhealth.com/
