Publications

If you’re familiar with the California Children’s Services (CCS) program, you’ve probably heard the story. A family moves from one county to another and their child’s CCS coverage changes or vanishes. A statewide group of CCS medical directors is working to fix that, and to encourage other improvements in the CCS program.

Dr. David Hayashida served as the medical director of San Francisco City and County’s California Children’s Services (CCS) office between 1995 and 2016. He shares his reflections on the 20 years he spent serving the CSHCN community, and offers his advice on the future of the CCS program.

In 2013, the Foundation launched the California Community Care Coordination Collaborative (5Cs) to test whether agencies serving children with special health care needs and their families could be brought together to improve local care coordination and promote needed system changes. A new report takes a look at the results of the first 18 months of the project.

The Lucile Packard Foundation for Children's Health organized a national symposium in Washington, D.C., to discuss issues within the general child health care system that have particular salience for the care of children with complex health problems.

Little is known about the relationship between receiving primary care in a medical home and unplanned hospital readmissions and emergency department visits among children with special health care needs. Researchers focused on whether children with primary care medical homes were less likely to have unplanned hospital readmissions in the 30 days after hospital discharge.

Little is known about the relationship between receiving primary care in a medical home and unplanned hospital readmissions and emergency department visits among children with special health care needs (CSHCN). A new study, published in the journal Pediatrics, sheds lights on this issue.

Care coordination almost always tops the list of services desired by families of children with special health care needs. Yet agreement is lacking not only on the definition of care coordination but also on the best methods of financing this much-needed benefit. A new report from the Catalyst Center, with support from the Lucile Packard Foundation for Children's Health, tackles the thorny questions of what care coordination is, who should receive it, who should provide it, and how it should be financed.

To commemorate tomorrow’s 15-year anniversary of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), we are looking back at six key laws that have specifically helped improve the lives of children with special health care needs.

With medical advances, the number of children needing long-term care over a lifetime continues to grow, presenting ongoing challenges to families and to the system of care that provides support. A new report describes how historical developments and current policies contribute to the lack of an effective system of care to manage the often complex, multi-dimensional health needs of these children and leaves families with an overwhelming burden of care.

Alisa Rosillo has two teenage sons who use wheelchairs, but she hasn’t let these challenges slow her family down. In 2007, the Concord, CA, mom helped pass a state law to curb the abuse of disabled parking spots. Now she has another bill sitting on the Governor’s desk.