A Joint Demonstration Project to Improve the Care of Patients with Dementia: A Partnership Between a Staff Model HMO and the Alzheimer's Association

Abstract

I am part of a multi-disciplinary team composed of researchers from Kaiser Permanente, the country's largest staff model Health Maintenance Organization (HMO) and the Los Angeles chapter of the Alzheimer's Disease and Related Disorders Association. This team has designed a demonstration service delivery system to enhance the quality of care given to dementia patients and their care givers. If the demonstration project is successful, it may be expanded throughout the Kaiser system. After completing my Ph.D. in medical anthropology at UCLA, I worked as a consultant at the Rand Corporation then held a post-doctoral fellowship in addictions through the National Institute on Drug Addiction. With this track record, and my experience with both qualitative and quantitative survey methods, I was hired at Kaiser as an internal health care service and organizational researcher. They did not hire me because I was an anthropologist. As an anthropologist, however, I have brought some of the discipline's perspectives to bear on the formative stages of the dementia demonstration project.