Co-Chair: David Foster, Caregiver, Community Member

Co-Chair: Deb Holtz, Ombudsman for Long Term Care, MN Board on Aging

The Achieving Quality expert team will focus on quality of the experience that typical families have over time, beginning with the individual diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease and continuing with any family caregiver training or support. Specifically, the team will develop findings and make recommendations regarding the following:

• Adopting a more global, holistic, universal model of care, including a training approach that encompasses the entire health care intervention and fully recognizes the human-ness of the process.
• Optimal approaches for training and supporting caregivers with regard to the topic area.
• Timely and coordinated offering of quality home and community-based services, including ideas for improving the quality of the entire continuum of support offered by home health services, family practice physicians, gerontologists, psychologists, geriatric psychiatry, and Minnesota medical schools. 
• Evaluating the issues related to assisted living and nursing home staff competency, quality measures and strategies for optimal consumer and family direction in all settings.
• Increasing public awareness of Alzheimer’s disease in this topic area, including how the expert team results can be translated into public information for the full population.
• Implementing and sustaining the recommended actions, including supporting infrastructure and funding possibilities.
• Identifying and addressing issues that diverse populations may pose for the topic area recommendations.
• Potential research initiatives in the topic area.