New American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) Policy Statements

• Patient- and Family-Centered Care and the Pediatrician’s Role
  Pediatricians can play a key role in recognizing the importance of family in a patient’s life and helping make caregiving and decision-making easier for patients, families, physicians, nurses, and other health care professionals. This policy statement notes that patient- and family-centered care is a necessary component of clinical decision-making, and that patients and their families should collaborate with health care professionals or team members in all aspects of care.
• The Pediatrician's Role in Family Support Programs
  This policy statement recommends opportunities for pediatricians to develop their expertise in assessing the strengths and stresses in families, in counseling families about strategies and resources, and in collaborating with others in their communities to support family relationships. The statement also discuses how pediatricians are positioned to serve as family advisors and community partners in supporting the well-being of children and families.
• School-Based Health Centers and Pediatric Practice
  This policy statement provides an overview of school-based health centers (SBHCs) and some of their documented benefits, addresses the issue of potential conflict with the medical home, and provides recommendations that support the integration and coordination of SBHCs and the pediatric medical home practice.

Guidebook Helps Families and Providers Collaborate on Improvement Teams
The National Initiative for Children’s Healthcare Quality (NICHQ) has published a new guidebook titled Powerful Partnerships—A Handbook for Families and Providers Working Together to Improve Care . The guidebook provides insight and advice to make the most of the partnerships between family members and health providers on quality improvement teams.

New Maternal and Child Health Bureau Training Portal
The Health Resources and Services Administration Maternal and Child Health Bureau developed a training portal in collaboration with academic and practice partners. This portal is designed to be a resource for maternal and child health professionals who seek to advance their public health and maternal and child health leadership skills. The portal includes a variety of online training resources including webinars, instructional modules, and self-guided short courses. Specific areas of interest related to medical home include: life course and social determinants framework , developing and managing teams , and child development . 

Article Discusses Ways to Make Electronic Medical Records (EMRs) More User-Friendly
An article published recently in Healthcare IT News— 5 Ways to Make your EMR More User-Friendly —provides suggestions on practical ways to make EMRs easier to use, including: use of appropriate controls consistently; standardized task sequences; reducing the amount of information users need to retain in their own memory; and techniques for organizing important items.

New Electronic Health Record (EHR) Implementation Tool       
The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology has launched a new 5-step implementation tool to assist provider organizations in making the decision about whether or not to adopt an EHR. The online program guides providers through assessing their practice’s readiness, planning an approach, selecting or upgrading to a certified EHR, training and implementation, and achieving meaningful use and quality improvement.

AAP Community Pediatrics Monthly Funding Alert
The AAP Community Pediatrics Monthly Funding Alert provides information on funding opportunities from the AAP and other organizations, as well as links to key programs and agencies.

For a more detailed listing of funding opportunities, click here.

(Back to Top)

American Public Health Association (APHA) Annual Meeting—Call for Abstracts
Abstract Deadline Range (Depending on Abstract Category): February 6-11, 2012
Conference Dates: October 27-31, 2012—San Francisco, CA
The APHA has launched a call for abstracts for individual paper presentations and poster sessions for the 2012 Annual Meeting. The theme of this meeting is Prevention and Wellness across the Life Span. All abstracts must be submitted online and the online submission form is now available. Abstracts should be no more than 250 words.

Webinar—Early Identification of Congenital Heart Defects: Information for Primary Care Providers
February 14, 2012—3 to 4pm (Central)
This educational webinar, hosted by the Congenital Heart Public Health Consortium, will provide information regarding newborn screening for congenital heart defects, such as recognizing early signs and symptoms, identifying appropriate pediatric cardiology/tertiary care center channels to refer children with suspected congenital heart defects, and linking patients/families with resources and support.

Webinar—Transition and School: Health & the Individual Education Plan (IEP)
February 22, 2012—3 to 3:30pm (Eastern)
The National Center for Healthcare Transition—Got Transition—is hosting an upcoming radio show provided through a webinar format. This episode relates to how healthcare transition might be addressed in the school setting. Facultywill discuss the IEP process as a key element in transition, how to keep it student centered and related to health. For more information or to register, click here.

The Fourth National Medical Home Summit
February 27-29, 2012—Philadelphia, PA
The Fourth National Medical Home Summit is a leading forum on developing and implementing patient- and family-centered medical homes. In addition to onsite participation, the summit is available live and archived via the Internet. This year's event features a special pre-conference on best practices in pediatric medical home as well as transformation lessons from the field. AAP members enjoy significantly reduced registration rates with the discount code "AAP".

Webinar—Bipolar Disorder in Adolescents: What Primary Care Providers Need to Know
February 29, 2012—1 to 2 pm (Eastern)
Bipolar disorder can present some of the most difficult challenges in pediatric primary care. Symptoms often mimic those of ADHD, and presentation can overlap with other mental illnesses. Despite the complexity of diagnosis and management, primary care providers have an important collaborative role in referring and partnering in the management of adolescents with bipolar disorder. This webinar, hosted by TeenScreen® National Center for Mental health Checkups at Columbia University, will focus on improving the identification of symptoms and determining first-line strategies for collaborating with mental health specialists.

11th Annual Early Hearing Detection & Intervention (EHDI) Conference
March 5-6, 2012—St Louis, MO
The 2012 Annual National EHDI Conference will provide an opportunity to identify areas of concern, promote collaboration, and share best practices to improve early hearing screening, diagnosis, and intervention systems for infants/young children and their families.

13th Annual International Summit on Improving Patient Care in the Office Practice & the Community
March 18-20, 2012—Washington, DC
The theme of this year’s Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) summit is Rediscovering Conversations. Key topic areas to be addressed include: patient- and family-centered care, health information technology, coordinating care across the care continuum, new models of primary care, and accountable care organizations (ACOs). To view full session descriptions and the complete conference agenda, click here.

National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners (NAPNAP) Annual Conference
March 28-30, 2012—San Antonio, TX
The NAPNAP 33rd Annual Conference on Pediatric Health Care will carry the theme New Frontiers in Child Health. The conference will highlight topics such as immunization updates from the CDC and a childhood obesity pre-conference. Two concurrent sessions of interest include Innovations in Implementing a Pediatric Health Care Home and Advance Care Coordination for Children with Special Health Care Needs.

National Quality Forum Annual Conference—Building a Patient- and Family-Centered Health System
April 4-5, 2012—Washington, DC
The National Quality Forum (NQF) annual conference seeks to highlight new knowledge and innovations, foster discussion, and facilitate the creation of an agenda that can move the healthcare improvement field forward. The conference will address the impact of policy, health information technology, and emerging measurement strategies on how patients can be further engaged to ensure they are at the center of healthcare.  

2012 National Health Promotion Summit
April 10-11, 2012—Washington, DC
Early Bird Registration Deadline: March 10, 2012
The 2012 National Health Promotion Summit, hosted by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (ODPHP), aims to promote the development of disease prevention and health promotion polices that align with national prevention initiatives, encourage stakeholders at every level to collaborate on reaching national health goals, and integrate health policies across all sectors.

35th National Rural Health Association Annual Rural Health Conference
April 17, 2011—Denver, CO
Early Bird Registration Deadline: March 26, 2012
The Annual Rural Health Conference is the nation's largest rural health conference, created for all of those with an interest in rural health care, including rural health practitioners, hospital administrators, clinic directors and lay health workers, social workers, state and federal health employees, academics, community members and more.

25th Annual Children's Mental Health Research & Policy Conference
May 4-7, 2012—Tampa, FL
This annual conference, hosted by the Department of Child and Family Studies at the University of South Florida, features a wide array of symposia, papers and poster presentations from an international field of scholars, educators, policy makers, and families who are integrally involved in shaping the children’s mental health field in America.

Difficult Conversations in Healthcare: Pedagogy and Practice
May 5 and June 9, 2012—Waltham, MA
Earn up to 6.75 AMA PRA Category 1 Credits™
This 1-day course will be offered on two different dates at the Children's Hospital Boston and is designed for physicians in all specialties, residency and clerkship directors, medical education leaders, medical educators, and multidisciplinary healthcare professionals (social workers, psychologists, and others) interested in and/or involved in teaching interpersonal and communication skills, professionalism, relationship-centered care, patient-practitioner relationships and related topics. The course offers the opportunity to learn about an innovative, collaborative relational learning model, known as the Program to Enhance Relational and Communication Skills (PERCS). For more information about the course and faculty, and to register online, click here.

Advancing the Methods for Healthcare Quality Improvement Research
May 7-8, 2012—Washington, DC
This two day event, hosted by the Academy for Healthcare Improvement, will include presentations from experts in the quality improvement research field. The program will include presentations, panel discussions, case studies, abstract presentations, and posters.

The 5th International Conference on Patient- and Family-Centered Care
June 4-6, 2012—Washington, DC
This conference, hosted by the Institute for Patient- and Family-Centered Care, will provide opportunities to address emerging issues in patient- and family-centered care, both at the systems and individual levels. It will include presentations and videos developed by health care organizations to support partnerships with patients and families, as well as plenary sessions, concurrent/topical breakout sessions, networking discussions, and poster presentations. For additional information, click here.

For a full listing of Upcoming Conferences and Events, click here

(Back to Top)

Call for Entries—2012 Best Practice Awards in Health Care Consumer Empowerment and Protection
Deadline for Entries: February 17, 2012
URAC, a health care accreditation and education organization, has issued a call for entries for its 2012 Best Practices Awards in Health Care Consumer Empowerment and Protection. The awards program honors the achievements of health care companies that actively pursue practices to advance consumer empowerment and protection in an exceptional, measurable, and reproducible way. For questions about the award program, email education@urac.org or call 202/216-9010.

Draft Research Priorities Released by the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI)
Comment Deadline: March 15, 2012
PCORI has issued the Draft National Priorities for Research and Research Agenda Version 1 and is interested in receiving comments about its first set of research priorities and agenda. PCORI was formed by Congress in 2010 and aims to finance research that leverages electronic health records in five priority areas to help providers and patients make improved care decisions. The five priority areas include: assessment of options for prevention, diagnosis, and treatment; improving health care systems; communication and dissemination research; addressing disparities; and accelerating patient-centered outcomes research and methodological research.

Study—Researchers Find High Job Satisfaction Reported by Staff in Patient-Centered Medical Homes
The article, Patient-Centered Medical Home Characteristics and Staff Morale in Safety Net Clinics, published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, discusses how researchers surveyed providers and clinical staff across safety net clinics and found that those who perceived patient-centered medical home characteristics in their clinics were likely to have higher moral and greater job satisfaction.

Study—Medical Home Traits Linked to Reducing Mortality
The article, Primary Care Attributes and Mortality: A National Person-Level Study, published in the Annals of Family Medicine,discusses how a patient’s access to comprehensive, patient-centered and evening and weekend primary care are connected to lower mortality risks. Researchers at the University of California, Davis, conducted the study.

Study—Patients Get Half of Recommended Preventive Screens During Routine Exams
An analysis published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine reveals that patients failed to get 46 percent of recommended preventive services and counseling during routine exams. The article, based on information from 484 checkups, notes that technological advances that give patients easy access to personal health records, coupled with automated reminders, may be part of the solution to this problem. The article also suggests that the medical home concept of care may be one approach to providing comprehensive, cost-effective care by mobilizing resources within and outside the exam room.

Report—Care Management Saved North Carolina Medicaid Nearly $1 Billion
An article in the Triangle Business Journal highlights how the use of care management has helped the North Carolina (NC) Medicaid program save nearly $1 billion from 2007-2010. A national health care consulting firm, Milliman Inc, conducted this analysis. These efforts were conducted under the NC program that supports the use of primary care medical homes.

For additional information on National Initiatives, click here

(Back to Top)

New Federal Policy Initiatives to Boost Health Literacy Can Help the Nation Move beyond the Cycle of Costly ‘Crisis Care’
Health Affairs released the article, New Federal Policy Initiatives to Boost Health Literacy Can Help the Nation Move Beyond the Cycle of Costly ‘Crisis Care’, which discusses how “health literacy is the capacity to understand basic health information and make appropriate health decisions.” The article suggests that the limited health literacy level of millions of Americans poses challenges in the delivery of quality care. Recent federal policy initiatives aim to improve health literacy and make it a priority in efforts to improve health care for all Americans.

Safety Net Medical Home Initiative (SNMHI) Archived Webinars
The SNMHI is an initiative launched by The Commonwealth Fund, Qualis Health, and the MacColl Institute for Healthcare Innovation at the Group Health Research Institute to help primary care safety net clinics become high-performing patient-centered medical homes. The SNMHI has posted archived copies of recent webinars framed around the initiative’s eight change concepts: empanelment; continuous and team-based healing relationships; patient-centered interactions; engaged leadership; quality improvement strategy; enhanced access; care coordination; and organized, evidence-based care. Webinars and other resources on all of the concepts are available on the SNMHI Web site.

New NICHQ Video Defines Patient-Centered Medical Homes
A new video developed by the National Initiative for Children’s Healthcare Quality (NICHQ) aims to clarify what the concept of patient-centered medical really means. The video features NICHQ CEO and President, Charles J Homer, MD, MPH explaining what a medical home is and why people are excited about this concept of care.

(Back to Top)

Medical Home Literature
The National Center for Medical Home Implementation (NCMHI) has developed the Medical Home Literature page available on its MedicalHomeInfo.org Web site. The literature page houses links to a wealth of articles, policy statements, and reports about the medical home and its building blocks that ensure care is accessible, family-centered, continuous, comprehensive, coordinated, compassionate, and culturally competent.

Partnering with Patients and Families in the Medical Home: 2011 CME Webinar Series
To demonstrate how medical home works in practice, the AAP and its NCMHI hosted a free four‐part CME webinar series from April through June 2011 for child health professionals and others. The webinar series faculty are recognized experts and each webinar has the goal of educating participants about the value of the family‐centered primary care medical home for all children and youth across the spectrum of care. The webinars review the role of the medical home in preventive, acute, and chronic care delivery, as well as the overarching importance of partnering with patients and families for optimal health outcomes. Faculty shared practical tools and resources, as well as strategies for improving quality of care and increasing patient/family partnership and satisfaction. For archived versions of each webinar in the series, visit the Continuing Medical Education (CME) Opportunities page.

(Back to Top)