Exploring Patient Navigation for People with Dementia, their Caregivers, and the Care Team
This project is led by the University of New Brunswick and examines patient navigation programs for people with dementia, their caregivers, and the care team. It aims to improve the integration, coordination, and navigation of community-based services and supports and resources for this population. This project was featured in the HEC Webinar Discussion Series: Community Based Dementia Care and Support.
Methodology to conduct a needs assessment
Needs assessments are useful because they can help you identify, understand, and prioritize the needs affecting your community. It is an important initial step when planning an intervention.
This document serves as a framework of how to conduct a needs assessment with the goal of implementing a patient navigation program for people with dementia, their caregivers, and members of the care team. This toolkit includes several documents to support this process, including interview questionnaires and consent forms.
Implementation of a patient navigation program
As the number of people in Canada with dementia sharply increases, patient navigation is a way to coordinate and integrate care for people with dementia and their caregivers and counter fragmented, uncoordinated, and often difficult to navigate systems.
Part of what makes dementia care complex is that the needs of people with dementia are individual and change according to its different stages. Patient navigation programs for people with dementia have the potential to:
- Improve experiences with health and social care systems for people with dementia, their caregivers, and the care team through improving the integration and coordination of care
- Increase access to resources and support
- Generally improve health outcomes for people with dementia and their caregivers.
This "how to" document serves as a framework for the development and implementation of a navigation program to serve those with dementia, their caregivers, and the care team. This toolkit includes several documents to support this process, such as intake forms; information on setting up a patient and family advisory council; policy documents; and evaluation tools.
