The Los Angeles Area Alzheimer's Outreach Program (LAAAOP) was funded by the National Institute on Aging in 1992 to provide education to community based physicians regarding the diagnosis and treatment of dementia. The program has been successful in disseminating educational information in the form of instructional modules sent to 10(x) physicians every two months, and in enrolling physicians in our comprehensive practice- integrated CME course. The program has focused on those physicians serving minority patients. The current specific aims of the LAAAOP are to I) expand upon our established physician outreach training program by enrolling nurse practitioners (NPs) and physician assistants (PAs) in our comprehensive practice integrated continuing medical education (CME) curriculum on AD; 2) to expand our educational outreach to NPs, PAs, and visiting home nurses (VHNs) via dissemination of periodic mailings of instructional materials on a variety of topics related to dementia; and 3) increase the ethnic diversity of patients referred to the research programs of the Alzheimer's Disease Research Center (ADRC) Consortium of Los Angeles and Orange Counties and the UCLA Alzheimer's Disease Core Center (ADCC). The LAAAOP represents a successful 3 year collaboration of two NIA funded Alzheimer's Disease Centers and the Los Angeles Chapter of the Alzheimer's Association. Primary care providers identified through focused mailing lists and patient care networks will comprise the audience for the educational outreach. The practice-integrated curriculum involves reading a syllabus, learning to administer a brief neuropsychological screening exam, submitting an evaluation of four patients to an expert panel for review and providing a report of the impact of the course on one's practice. Graduates of the course will be added to the Alzheimer's Association Helpline referral network, and will receive 30 hours of CME credit. The course is available in English and Spanish. Educational mailings to primary care providers will be made every two months and will include an instructional module with questions that can be answered for CME credit. Audiotaped versions of the modules will also be available. The Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) will be taught as a means of improving practice. Information will be obtained on the ethnicity, gender, age, type of practice, and use of the MMSE by primary care providers on the mailing list. Monitoring the number of information requests, accuracy of CME responses, and alterations in the frequency of use of the MMSE will provide a quantitative means of assessing the impact of the module program.
