Collaborating to co-produce educational content to champion dementia care in acute settings: Lessons learned

Enhancing dementia care to benefit people with dementia and their family carers requires both global and local initiatives. The purpose of this presentation is to share how we adapted a successful Scottish initiative (known as the Scottish National Dementia Champions Programme) to our local Canadian context with the ultimate aim to ‘champion’ dementia care provided by healthcare professionals in acute care settings. To guide our co-production, we are employing Hawkins et al.’s three-phase framework: (1) evidence review and stakeholder consultation, (2) co-production of intervention content, and (3) prototyping. After phase one was completed (in February 2020) we embarked on phase two and learned several key lessons from the co-production of the program content. These include the importance of (a) partnering with those with lived experience to infuse their voices in all aspects of the program; (b) learning and benefitting from our Scottish colleagues’ rich experiences; (c) capitalizing on long-standing Pan-Canadian relationships and launching new ones; (d) meeting virtually, on a consistent basis over 12 months, with established agendas and precise minute-taking; and (e) building consensus on what and how to prioritize program content and resources to align with the Canadian Charter of Rights for People with Dementia, within the foundation of person-/family-centred care. The results of our work in phase two enables us to proceed with phase three to pilot the co-produced program’s content and resources in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan.