Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
Health Care Systems Embedded Research Program: MIND at Home at Centene Corporation
Dr. Samus is an associate professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and the founding director of the Memory and Aging Services Innovation Center in the Department of Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. She is an applied gerontologist trained in health services research and epidemiology. Dr. Samus has led several large federally funded projects to improve dementia care quality and health care equity through translation of practical evidence-based, and cost-efficient practices to meet the needs of patients, families, providers, and health systems. She is a member of national and international dementia care advisory committees and currently serves as chairperson of the State of Maryland’s Virginia I. Jones ADRD Council. The overarching objective of her work is to improve care quality and outcomes through translation of evidence-based practices to real-world settings.
This HCS Scholar award will provide Dr. Samus with dedicated time to deepen and extend an existing collaboration between JHU and Centene Corporation in order to enhance ADRD care quality within the organization, improve member outcomes, and reduce costs. They will focus on the implementation and evaluation of the Maximizing Independence at Home (MIND at Home) dementia care coordination program within its managed care health plans/products as a first step in partnering, and as the foundation for a later multi-site embedded pragmatic demonstration project and collaborate on a roadmap for partnership on broader, enterprise-wide ADRD activities. As a HCS Scholar, Dr. Samus aims to become an informed and effective embedded pragmatic clinical trial (ePCT) investigator. This includes advancing her understanding of ePCT design and methods as well as that of a large health care organization. Specific Aims: (1) Deepen and extend the relationship between the investigator, Centene, and JHU to enhance Centene's approach to caring for PLWD and their care partners and position the company as an industry leader in ADRD care; (2) Advance the investigator's knowledge of the ePCT design, methods, and implementation and on the characteristics (structural, operational) of the HCS partner; (3) Evaluate member and cost outcomes of the current MIND Medicaid Managed care plan pilot program using a propensity-matched study; and (4) Identify, engage, and prepare a set of new health plans (e.g., MMP plans) for evaluation and implementation of MIND through an ePCT pilot or multisite demonstration project.