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CARE_PATH for Kids: A Family-Centered Approach to Shared Plans of Care for Children with Special Health Care Needs

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Shared care-planning for children with special health care needs (CSHCN) must start with a comprehensive view of the child and family and be anchored to their unique strengths, needs, context, and aspirations. The Child and Adolescent Health Measurement Initiative (CAHMI) designed and piloted the CARE_PATH for Kids, a novel three-step, family-centered approach to the process of creating Shared Plans of Care (SPoC) for CSHCN that complements existing models in the field.

Learn how the CARE_PATH for Kids:

  1. Helps families reflect on and share with care teams a summary of strengths, whole life context, unique needs and priorities, and their goals and vision for their child and family’s well-being

  2. Facilitates a close relational meeting between the family and care team to create a ‘Dashboard’ summary that serves as the foundation of a SPoC and is continuously updated over time.

​Speakers presented on the development and testing of the CARE_PATH for Kids and discussed how pediatric practices can integrate the model into the SPoC. 

Webinar Recording

Download Webinar Slides

Speakers

Christina D. Bethell, PhD, MBA, MPH

Professor, Johns Hopkins University in the Bloomberg School of Public Health

Christina is the founding director of the Child and Adolescent Health Measurement Initiative and leads projects to improve early childhood development and care for children with special health care needs using family centered data and tools, including the Well Visit Planner and the CARE_PATH for Kids, and the Children with Special Health Care Needs Screener. Through these tools she seeks to build trusting relationships and healing encounters between families and health care providers and promote whole child and whole family care. She advances a positive construct of health and works to implement a widely endorsed national agenda to address childhood trauma and promote healing and flourishing through research, advocacy, and teaching.

Jonathan Cottor, MBA

Father and Advocate

Jonathan is the proud dad of a son diagnosed at 9 months with Spinal Muscular Atrophy and who lived an incredible life until his death at 17 years (Dec. 2018). He and his wife co-founded Ryan House, a successful pediatric palliative care and hospice home in Phoenix. His family journey is full of advocacy and grassroots community capacity building for non-profits, in addition to a professional career in marketing. He is currently a full-time MPH student at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, completing in May 2021.

Melissa Clark Vickers, M.Ed.

Project Director, Family Voices (Retired)

Melissa has worked with Family Voices for more than 20 years. Her passion for building resilience in families includes recognizing key roles that families play in day-to-day wellness, and the importance of prevention in lifelong health. As lead for the Family Voices project with CAHMI on the CARE_PATH for Kids tool, she convened diverse family leaders to share real world experience around children with complex medical needs to help in the development of the tool. As a member of the AAP Bright Futures Infancy Expert Panel, she helped revise the Bright Futures Guidelines for Health Supervision of Infants, Children, and Adolescents, 3rd and 4th editions. She was the lead author of the Family Voices companion publication, the Bright Futures Family Pocket Guide, 2nd and 3rd editions.

David A. Bergman MD

Professor Emeritus of Pediatrics, Stanford University School of Medicine

In his role as past Chairman of the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Quality Improvement, Dr. Bergman was instrumental in the development of evidence-based practice guidelines. He has just completed his tenure as the Medical Director of a Health Care Innovation Award to evaluate the impact of a care management intervention on cost and utilization in children with medical complexity and is currently involved with a grant to study the implementation of virtual visits in well childcare and for children with medical complexity. He also serves as a consultant to the National Association of Health Plans for their project to develop care coordination standards for children with special health care needs. Dr. Bergman continues to see patients with medical complexity at Stanford Children’s Health.

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