Policy specialist: Consider dementia record requirement

A dementia policy shaper sees the United States moving toward requiring doctors to note signs of Alzheimer’s disease or other forms of dementia in patients’ records.

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Matthew Baumgart, senior director for public policy at the Alzheimer’s Association, included references to dementia patient record requirements in draft examples of milestones that the federal Advisory Council on Alzheimer’s Research, Care and Services could use to see how well it’s doing at meeting its goals.

The council has a meeting scheduled for Monday.

Congress included the provision creating the advisory council in the National Alzheimer’s Project Act of 2011 (NAPA). The council is supposed to find a way to prevent or treat Alzheimer’s disease by 2025.

One goal in the Alzheimer’s plan the council developed is to ensure timely and accurate diagnosis of dementia. Baumgart offers three examples of how the council could create milestones based on that goal.

Each includes a milestone for incorporating “cognitive changes, diagnostic information, and caregivers into electronic health record,” and recording “all cognitive changes, diagnostic information, and caregivers in all patient medical records.”