— Context
Following the publication in May 2009 of the report entitled “Meeting the challenges of Alzheimer’s disease and other related conditions, a vision centred on the individual, humanism, and excellence,” published at the request of Quebec’s provincial government and led by Dr. Howard Bergman, the Ministry of Health and Social Services supervised the deployment, over a two-year period, of an initial phase consisting of nineteen local projects with the aim of improving access to healthcare and social services for patients suffering from Alzheimer’s disease and other major neurocognitive disorders.These projects were spread across the entirety of the province of Quebec, and financed from April 2013 to March 2016. This was the context in which RUISSS McGill and Quebec’s three other networks of university hospitals were approached to support these projects.

The province-wide assessment that was carried out in the fall of 2015 made it possible to highlight the success of the initiative, and it was therefore decided that experience gained in these projects would serve as a model for the rest of Quebec. The Ministerial Initiative on Alzheimer’s Disease and other major neurocognitive disorders thus became a province-wide project in April 2016, whereupon it assumed the name of “Phase 2.” An implementation guide, containing the guidelines for this Phase 2 for the period 2016-2019 was published to enable practices derived from Phase 1 to be deployed on a large scale, particularly within Quebec’s Family Medicine Groups. In respect of the catchment area of the RUISSS McGill, the Ministry of Health and Social services specifically requested that the Centre of Excellence on Longevity should lead this second phase.