North Dakota's state-funded Dementia Care Services Program provides individualized assistance to caregivers of persons with dementia. Caregivers can contact program representatives at any time and may continue to contact them throughout the years they are caring for the person with dementia. During the program's first forty-two months of operation (January 2010 to June 2013), care consultants assisted 1,750 caregivers, primarily family members, of 951 persons with dementia. In survey responses and other self-reported data, the unpaid caregivers credited the assistance program with helping them feel more empowered, consider their charges less likely to be placed in long-term care, and use less potentially avoidable medical services such as hospitalizations and 911 calls. The program's estimated potential savings were $39.2 million from delayed long-term care placement and $0.8 million from reduced use of medical services, and its two-year costs were $1.2 million. The program's success with its rural service population, for which travel tends to be difficult and resources limited, provides a model for others to adapt. It also encourages further research on impacts of individualized support programs on persons with dementia and their caregivers.

EDs treating large, small, or isolated rural patients with mental disorders are more likely to treat populations identified in the literature at greater risk of preventable visits, readmitting, and more costly care. Recommendations are made for policy, community interventions, workforce, and training.

Utilization of hospice for end-of-life care is known to be lower among racial and ethnic minority groups than among White populations when controlling for other socioeconomic factors. Certain patient, provider, and community characteristics may influence home-hospice use. We sought to identify patient, provider, and community factors associated with home-hospice use. Our final analytic sample included 1,208,700 hospice patients who received home-hospice from 2,148 Medicare-certified hospice providers in 2016. We found that an increase in the proportion of hospice patients with a primary diagnosis of dementia decreased the odds that home-hospice was provided (OR = 1.42, 95% CI = 1.36-1.48). Patients who received hospice care from a provider with a higher proportion of dually enrolled patients were less likely to receive home-hospice (OR = 1.42, 95% CI = 1.36-1.48) and hospices located in ZIP-codes with higher proportion of Hispanic resident were less likely to provide home-hospice (OR = 1.00, 95% CI = 0.99-0.99). Additional research is needed to clarify the mechanisms underlying these associations.