University of Colorado School of Medicine
Extraordinary Partners in Dementia: UCHealth Capacity for Pragmatic Interventions
Dr. Lum conducts patient-centered outcomes research to improve care for older adults with serious illnesses, especially people living with dementia (PLWD) and their care partners. She is a geriatrician, palliative care physician, and associate professor in the Division of Geriatric Medicine, Department of Medicine, at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. Her research focuses on developing and implementing effective models of care related to novel advance care planning (ACP) interventions, patient portal-based tools, and dementia caregiver support. In partnership with UCHealth, she implemented a process for patients to complete a Medical Durable Power of Attorney through the patient portal. Since 2017, more than 30,000 patients have chosen a medical decision maker and added that documentation to their medical record. With her background as a Beeson Scholar and a Health and Aging Policy Fellow, she is passionate about integrating evidence-based interventions into real-world clinical care to improve quality of life for older adults.
UCHealth is an academic-community health care system (HCS) of more than 100 primary care clinics that served more than 88,000 Coloradans over age 70. UCHealth has unrealized potential to embed dementia care interventions that are meaningful to PLWD and care partners.
As a HCS Scholar, Dr. Lum will lead a team of interdisciplinary experts at UCHealth in dementia caregiving research, neurology, patient stakeholder engagement, health informatics, practice-based research, and participatory research methods. Together, they will establish a Dementia Partners Council to provide ongoing input from patient and care partners' perspectives. Together, they will accomplish three Partnering Goals: 1) Understand PLWD and care partner perspectives on dementia health IT tools, focusing on underserved populations; 2) Assess clinician preferences related to implementation and sustainability of dementia health IT tools in outpatient workflows; and 3) Plan for dementia health IT real-world clinical trials through building electronic health record capacity. Their Partnering Plan is guided by values of: focusing on meaningful outcomes to PLWD and care partners, emphasis on equity through cultural awareness and reach to underserved communities, leveraging interprofessional collaborations, and use of health informatics tools.