A collaborative approach in dementia care to improve clinical effectiveness and priorities for research through audit.

Background: To provide appropriate cost-effective care for an ageing population, realignment of care provision to conditions common in advanced age, notably, dementia and multi-morbidities is required. The use of outcome measures in practice may enable this.

Aim: A collaborative baseline audit was undertaken to understand how best to implement outcome measures into services for people with dementia across clinical settings.

Methods: An academic institution set up a 6-month collaborative baseline audit in 11 English sites. Measures comprised: symptoms/concerns (Integrated Palliative care Outcome Scale for Dementia); Phase of Illness; functional status (Australia-modified Karnofsky Performance Scale); and dementia severity (Functional Assessment Staging).

Findings: Measures were completed at first assessment for 225 people with dementia across nine sites. Their completion promoted comprehensive assessments, but challenges also existed, including recording the prevalence/severity of non-physical symptoms by proxy.

Conclusions: The joining together of clinical academic expertise enabled mobilisation of expert knowledge into and from clinical practice.