Human Services News

The Commonwealth Fund:

Standardization of well-child care services is intended to ensure that families receive core services and key information.

Despite taking great pains to be efficient providers of care, may pediatric practices struggle to fulfill the needs and expectations of families with young children.

Much of physicians' time is spent on providing services that could be better performed by other health professionals, infringing on time they have available to care for children with complex medical problems.

Because of the poor design of well-child care, providers often fail to adopt evidence-based practices, such as the use of standardized developmental screening.

Advanced Access to Care In ideal well-child care, families would be able to access health services and consult with their providers in ways that work for them.

Systems would be implemented to allow parents to make same-day appointments, or appointments at desired times in the future.

Developmental and educational assessment could be performed in schools, day care centers, or community and religious centers.

Care Coordination in the Context of a Medical Home In an ideal well-child care system, each child would have a medical home to coordinate care among multiple pediatric specialists, schools, and community agencies.

Such partnerships could focus on population-based health initiatives, such as obesity prevention.

For children with special health care needs, community pathways would be developed to bring together the health care system, schools, and other community agencies and provide a clear path for children who need a wide array of services.

Knowledge Transfer and Electronic Health Records To care for their children and participate in the medical decision-making process, families need access to accurate information and effective systems for knowledge transfer.