Stakeholder engagement is key to patient-centered care. It is particularly relevant to this proposal since stakeholder engagement can help ensure accountability and equity and avoid unintended consequences as we develop and integrate novel technology to improve the care and health of older adults. Stakeholder engagement is also relevant since many of the decisions older adults, especially those with dementia, face are preference-sensitive and inherently dependent on the patient perspective. The goal of Stakeholder Engagement Core for the AITC is to assemble and elicit input from a diverse set of stakeholders to inform all phases of the AITC project. Stakeholders include older adults, caregivers, clinicians, other health professionals, researchers, health system leaders, health informatics experts, technology develops, investors, and policymakers. We will use multiple synergistic and rigorous methods to engage with these diverse categories of stakeholders. In Aim 1, we will establish a Stakeholder Engagement Council comprising of 10-12 older adults, caregivers, clinicians and health professionals who are the most direct end-users of the products that the AITC aims to develop. The Stakeholder Engagement Council will provide ongoing input throughout the AITC project period including needs assessment, feedback during prototype development and feasibility testing, development of pilot grant solicitations and review of pilot grant proposals, support for pilot projects' stakeholder engagement efforts, input to networking and dissemination activities, and input to the design, content, and conduct of Aim 2's phase-specific, more targeted stakeholder engagement activities. Aim 2 includes more focused stakeholder engagement activities tailored to the different phrases of the AITC project. Specifically we will use environmental scan and needs assessment to identify technology needs, to use various feedback elicitation sessions (focus groups, interviews, questionnaires) to elicit input on feasibility and acceptability of products during technology development and testing. Lastly, we will organize a variety of forums including community workshops, town hall demonstrations and leverage national conferences to help disseminate the developed technology to community members, researchers, and technology developers/investors. Aim 3 focuses on the AITC goal of being a national resource and will establish infrastructure, support, and training for pilot grantees to engage stakeholder in their own projects. This Core includes a multi-disciplinary team with extensive experience in stakeholder engagement. We will work cohesively with the other AITC Cores to elicit and integrate important stakeholder perspectives to inform all key activities of the AITC.
