G-2308-19708

The Lunder-Dineen Health Education Alliance of Maine (Lunder-Dineen) offers free, easily accessible and evidence-based education to Maine health care professionals and the communities they serve. In Maine, access to preventive oral health care is especially important for older adults due to limited knowledge around recently expanded Medicaid dental benefits and ability to physically travel to clinical sites given the state's rural geography.

In the organization's most recent grant period, Lunder-Dineen carried out a statewide needs assessment survey to identify caregiver training needs and gaps that garnered more than 150 responses across the state. Furthermore, Lunder-Dineen leveraged that data to create a caregiver education curriculum focused on oral health for older adult populations, which was piloted among 30 stakeholders from the Southern Maine Area Agency on Aging through an online learning management system to gather feedback on user experience and impact. The organization is currently implementing changes to the curriculum based on this feedback and planning strategies to make the curriculum broadly accessible throughout Maine.

In the coming year, Lunder-Dineen plans to expand its base of partnerships to promote the adoption of the MOTIVATE at Home curriculum among the remaining AAAs in the state, beginning with those operating in the most rural parts of the state. This expansion will not be limited to AAAs as it will also engage the University of Maine, churches, senior housing centers, and more to ensure awareness and promote utilization. The proposed scope of work also aims to improve user experience with an eye toward more intuitive and understandable website functionality for learners across the age spectrum. Lunder-Dineen's engagement with existing partners will be ongoing to ensure the curriculum is regularly updated. Finally, the organization intends to present its work and related resources to oral health advocates, caregivers, and providers-to-be at conferences and regional convenings to bring greater awareness to the issue and newly developed educational materials.

Evaluation of this project will include quantitative and qualitative metrics that seek to address questions and concerns from care partners and healthcare professionals about delivering effective and safe preventive care to older adult populations who are homebound or facing mobility/access challenges. Through pre- and post-curriculum surveys, Lunder-Dineen will be positioned to report on knowledge gain, skill improvement among caregivers, reach and expansion of the program, and any additional learning gaps for the increasingly diverse pool of learners. At the end of the project period, the organization also hopes to position itself as a technical assistance/implementation provider for organizations interested in adapting the curriculum for similar populations.

This proposal includes a request for $100,000 in grant funds to support scaling of the MOTIVATE at Home curriculum developed by Lunder-Dineen. This project has been supported by CareQuest Institute since its inception and is now positioned for broad dissemination and scaling beyond FQHC sites in Maine and AAAs. Funding is recommended for the full request amount, which will be used to support partnership identification and development with at least six AAAs, efforts to increase the curriculum's visibility to academic and clinical institutions, and ongoing stakeholder engagement to ensure regular and intentional evaluation and refinement of the curriculum. Staff support for this project is covered entirely by Massachusetts General Hospital and the recommended grant amount is equivalent to less than 1% of the organization's overall budget.