As an incoming faculty member of University of Chicago’s Department of Neurology and the MacLean Center for Medical Ethics, I am so excited and grateful to the Center for Healthcare Delivery Science and Innovation (HDSI) for the opportunity to increase access to care for our patients with dementia at The Memory Center at UChicago Medicine. Recently nationally recognized with the 2021 Innovations in Alzheimer’s Caregiving Award and the 2021 Redefining American Healthcare Award, The Memory Center prioritizes the quality of life of our patients and their care partners by engaging them in wrap-around support and resources, offering social programming including the arts, and building meaningful partnerships within the community (e.g. Dementia Friendly Hyde Park, Lorenzo’s House, and SHARE Network Chicago). We hope to broaden the scope of our comprehensive care approach by identifying and addressing barriers to effective therapies, even beyond our clinic walls, for all of our patients regardless of social or demographic factors.

Cognitive communication therapy is an integral means of retaining daily functioning and improving quality of life for our patients. Unfortunately, not every person who walks into our clinic is able to access these therapies. In fact, there is not a single center to our knowledge that provides cognitive communication therapy south of the Chicago loop. As a result, geographic location and transportation pose significant social barriers to access of quality services for patients at the Memory Center. Our goal with this project is to closely examine and characterize the social determinants of health and the demographic divide between the patients who have can access these therapies and those who cannot and to see what we can do to close that gap.

Our patient demographic is a distinguishing factor between The Memory Center at UChicago Medicine as compared to other centers in the Chicagoland area. Our patients, largely Black or African American, are twice as likely as White counterparts to develop dementia but half as likely to have a proper diagnosis or access to support resources. These are inequities that need to be addressed to properly care for our patients. Fortunately, I have wonderful colleagues who are just as passionate about increasing access to memory care for all people in the South Side of Chicago: Tessa Garcia McEwen, LCSW with The Memory Center at UChicago Medicine, a Certified Dementia Practitioner and DEI expert, and Treasyri Williams, SLPD, CCC-SLP, a Speech Language Pathologist and the Clinic director of the new DePaul Speech and Language Clinic. We are so pleased to partner with the DePaul Speech and Language Clinic, as their Life Participation and Montessori approach is particularly practical for all stages of dementia, and their donation-based university clinic model already transcends many of the insurance-related or financial barriers that affect patients. Stay tuned for more details on our upcoming healthcare delivery model between DePaul Speech and Language Center and The Memory Center at UChicago Medicine!