CANADIAN GERIATRICS SOCIETY

Decision-Making Capacity Assessment Workshops 

Registration is now closed!

Date: Wednesday, April 24, 2024

Time:

Level 1: 9:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.

Level 2: 1:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. 

Location: The Westin Calgary

The life expectancy of Canadians and prevalence of complex chronic health conditions continue to rise and assessment of independent decision-making capacity emerges as an issue of increasing importance. The Decision-Making Capacity Assessment (DMCA) Model was developed to facilitate a process by which the least restrictive and intrusive means of support can be determined and offered to persons whose decision making has come into question. Many physicians do not feel prepared to assess capacity from their residency training.

Physicians play a key role in capacity assessment as they are able to declare persons incapable and as a result, they often require additional training once in practice. These educational workshops have been developed on the DMCA process. This was based on an initial Capacity Assessment Professional Opinion Survey by Covenant Health (formerly Caritas) in Edmonton, which identified this as an area that required interdisciplinary staff training in 2006. There were increased costs of poorly conducted capacity assessments. The study identified a lack of knowledge, skill set, standardized method/tools/guidelines, coordination, and role definition, plus the issue of resource allocation.

A process was proposed with front-end screening and problem-solving, a well-defined standardized assessment, and definition of team members' roles. A care map was developed based on this process. Documentation was developed consisting of a capacity assessment database and patient interview for formal capacity assessment. Interactive workshops, administered to familiarize staff with the model, include concepts of capacity, the protocol, documents, and case studies. A feasibility study looking at three acute-care sites in Edmonton confirmed that this process addressed the issues of lack of knowledge, skill set, etc.

WORKSHOPS

These three-hour workshops are now offered to physicians given their pivotal role in capacity assessment. This program meets the accreditation criteria of the College of Family Physicians of Canada.

Level 1 workshop for physicians with no experience in DMCA: This Group Learning program has been certified by the College of Family Physicians of Canada for up to 6 Mainpro+ credits.

Facilitators: Heidi Schmaltz, Vivian Ewa

Level 2 workshop for physicians with some experience in DMCA: This Group Learning program has been certified by the College of Family Physicians of Canada for up to 9 Mainpro+ credits. 

Facilitator: Lesley Charles

Both workshops have also been accredited by the RCPSC with 3 MOC credits for each.

To date 822 allied healthcare professionals and 281 physicians have been trained with improvement in competencies and good evaluation.