Are you wondering how to identify patients in your practice who are at clinical risk of dementia? The new Directed Enhanced Service (DES) Facilitating timely diagnosis and support for people with dementia is designed to reward GP practices for undertaking a proactive approach to the assessment of patients who may be at risk of dementia. The PRIMIS Casefinder Query Library can help practices to identify the first cohort of patients to invite for assessment. The library not only helps to identify patients with a confirmed diagnosis that do not have a diagnostic Read code in their electronic medical records (an extremely useful tool should the QOF Advisory Committee recommend that dementia be included in the Quality and Outcomes Framework for 2014/15), but it also helps practices to identify patients who are at risk of developing the condition.
Although the criterion used in the query library is not an exact match for the DES specification, it will identify a group of patients with suspected (but not confirmed) dementia that can be called in or flagged for assessment. PRIMIS will be developing a new query library later this year that will enable GP practices to easily identify the 'at risk' patients, as per the DES specification.Full members of PRIMIS Hub can download the Casefinder audit tool now, which also includes casefinding tools for osteoporosis and peripheral arterial disease. Your practice can upgrade to full membership for as little as £350 (plus VAT) per annum.
For further details please contact PRIMIS via: enquiries@primis.nottingham.ac.uk
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