Oklahoma Physician Uses Indian Health GeriScholars Program to Create Dementia Screening System
Dr. Raphael Francisco is a clinic provider with the Absentee Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma. He has had an interest in serving older adults since his early years of medical school and residency training.
The opportunity to take part in the Indian Health Service’s GeriScholars Program has helped him expand his knowledge and enhance his clinical practice.
“I wanted to participate because it would not just add knowledge and skills to the clinic staff but would also benefit the clinic patients and their families for many years to come.”
As part of the requirements for the GeriScholars program, participants must identify a problem in the clinical setting, develop an action plan, and implement it. Dr. Francisco recognized a need for dementia screening and developed a process to address it. “[Because of this program] we now have a formal system of screening our elderly patients for dementia and accurately documenting the results in the patient's charts. The information is also easily retrievable at any time for clinical or statistical purposes,” said Francisco.
Aside from his internal medicine background, he is also an adult endocrinologist. Most of his patients have type 2 diabetes.
He added that many elderly patients tend to have more established complications of type 2 diabetes and take more medications. They often have lifelong preferences and habits in their diet and physical activity. This can make it harder to modify and improve their lifestyle. There is also a greater need for disease-specific education that they can remember and relate to.
His role as a GeriScholar has come full circle this Spring. He now serves as a mentor for an IHS Geriatric Nurse Fellow from a different Oklahoma tribal clinic. The Nurse Fellow is also interested in improving dementia screening.
His advice to people interested in healthcare and serving the elder patient population is to always be on the lookout for problems and areas for improvement.
“And realize that there will always be a better way of doing things,” he said. “These better ways, or ‘tweaks’ need not be on a large scale. Almost all major improvements in the way we do things in healthcare were the result of several dozen ‘tweaks.’”
Visit the IHS GeriScholars Program website for more information.
