Social determinants of health are the family and community factors that affect children's health and well being. Edward Schor, MD, addresses how the relationship between social determinants of health and the health care system impacts children's health and well being.
In 2014, a national group of experts released a core set of standards for improving systems of care for children and youth with special health care needs. A newly updated version streamlines, simplifies, and updates those standards to encourage readability and ease of use.
The family perception of care integration is essential in identifying opportunities to improve processes of care coordination and care management. This webinar introduced a tool developed at Boston Children’s Hospital to measure how families experience integration of care for their children with special health care needs.
A new report from Public Counsel documents the persistence of a longstanding issue in California—disparities in purchase of services for ethnic and racial groups served by the state's 21 Regional Centers.
Limited access to mental health services for children is a well-recognized national problem. The authors suggest that while increasing the supply of providers is a challenge, a demand side approach offers a promising strategy to addressing access issues. Preventing the development or reducing the severity of child and adolescent emotional disorders hold great promise as cost-effective ways to reduce the demand for scarce services, they write.
Pediatric patients and their families rountinely should have the opportunity to give feedback on the health services they receive, and should have their feedback thoughtfully considered by providers, says Edward L. Schor, MD.
Although children with special health care needs (CSHCN) fare better when they are cared for in a "medical home," only a small percentage receive such care. A survey queried California board-certified pediatricians about their experience in caring for CSHCN and their thoughts on system changes that could enhance their willingness to provide a medical home.
Children with special health care needs (CSHCN) fare better when they are cared for in a "medical home," yet only a small percentage receive such care. In a series of focus groups and interviews, California pediatricians and other key informants discuss their views on caring for CSHCN, and their ideas about how system changes could enhance their willingness to provide a medical home.
Nearly half of children with special health care needs rely on Medicaid. Edwin Park of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities provides an analysis of the consequences of changing Medicaid to a block grant program.
Researchers at Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, and Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health have created the Pediatric Integrated Care Survey (PICS), a validated tool for measuring a family's experience with the integration of health care and related services for children and youth with special health care needs. Read more and get access to the tool.
