Medical
Homes in Utah
This page is designed to keep you informed about events
and activities happening in Utah that will help improve access
to medical homes for children with special health care needs
(CSHCN).
Click on a topic below to learn more about what's
going on in Utah
Medical Home Initiatives
This section provides information
on state medical home initiatives/programs. States that
are a part of the mentorship
network will have a "Promise to the State"
which outlines how they will achieve ensuring that all children
have a medical home by 2010. This is based on the Healthy
People 2010 goals which is a 10 year action plan to
achieve and
measure
success for all CSHCN.
Utah Medical Home Contact:
Name: Barbara Ward RN BS - Project Coordinator,
Utah Collaborative Medical Home
Contact: Phone: 801-584-8584 | Email:
bward@utah.gov
The Utah Department of Health
has been awarded an HRSA State Implementation Grant for
Improving Services for Children and Youth with Autism
Duration of Program: Project period September 1, 2008-August 31, 2011
Contact Person: Rebecca Giles, MPH| rgiles@utah.gov
GOALS AND OBJECTIVES:
The Project’s overall goal is to improve access to comprehensive, coordinated health care and related services for children and youth with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and other developmental disabilities.
Utah goals include 1) Improve identification and health care of children with ASD/DD y training family/pediatric Medical Homes , dentists, & other providers on screening, intervention, and community resources; 2) Use www.medhomeportal.org to expand ASD/DD evidence-based information available to families and providers; 3)Improve community providers' capacity for early recognition of signs of ASD to improve referral, diagnosis, treatment; 4) Expand Utah Family Voices' capacity to provide families with support coordination.
The Utah Department of Health completed an MCHB State Implementation Grant for Integrated Community Systems of Services for CSHCN - Abstract
Duration of Program: Project period May 1, 2005- April 30, 2008.
Contact Person: Barbara Ward, RN | bward@utah.gov
GOALS AND OBJECTIVES:
The Project’s overall goal is the systematic integration of community-based services for CYSHCN and their families throughout Utah. Component Goals included: 1) Design and implement the leadership and infrastructure to accomplish and sustain this integration; 2) Using the Learning Collaborative model, CSHCN offered 5 full day learning sessions to 12 Pediatric Practice teams, and integrated the six core components into Utah community systems; 3) Through the medical home website and three community summits the bureau provided information to support the integration of the 6 Core Components into communities. For more information about this grant and the program objectives click here. This project brought to 20 the number of trained pediatric practice teams in the state who are implementing the medical home model in their practices.
Utah Statewide Medical Home Implementation Plan: Promise to the State 
Utah Collaborative Medical Home Project: www.medhomeportal.org
MCHB Medical Home Project: Abstract

Project Period: Three years From: 3/31/01
to 3/30/04
The purpose of this project was to develop and implement
a statewide system to support medical
homes for children with special health care needs (CSHCN)
in primary care settings. Five pediatric and family practice teams were trained in the medical home model of caring for CSHCN.
MCHB Integrated Services Grant "Opening Utah's Doors"
: Abstract
Project Period: 4 Years—July 2001 to July 2005 -Grant Completed -This project continues as UtahClicks www.utahclicks.com
Name: Adrienne Akers
Contact : akers@go-dss.com, 435-752-9129
Purpose: Some families who have a child with special
needs feel confused and overwhelmed in an attempt to find
services that their child needs most. This website allows for a family to apply only once for several services including: Medicaid, CHIP, CSHCN, and EI.
MCHB Grant "Measuring and Monitoring":
Abstract

Project Completed:
The M&M Project was funded by DSCSHN and was a collaborative
endeavor of the Early Intervention Research Institute at
Utah State University and six states: Vermont, South Carolina,
Ohio, Arizona, Utah, and Oregon. The purpose of the project
is to understand current state capacity to measure the CSHCN
outcomes and to help them enhance their capacity through
expanded measurement and monitoring efforts. A critical
step for reaching this end was to develop indicators to
facilitate outcome measurement.
Utah completed the National Initiative for Child Health
Quality (NICHQ) Medical Home Learning Collaborative
- A fifteen-month collaborative activity to improve care
for the growing population of CSHCN. This initiative focused
on 3 practices in the state and assisted them in completing
a quality improvement process to provide medical homes to
their patients with special needs. It also assisted in building
the capacity of Utah's CSHCN and other health department
programs to support and extend this approach after the completion
of the project period. For more information you can go to
the project
overview.
Utah Care Notebook Care
Notebook 
This Care Notebook is an organizing tool for families who
have children with special health care needs. Utah created
the book to help families keep track of important health care
information, list providers and community organizations contact
information, prepare for appointments and file and share health
history. Utah Family Voices shared this guide so that other
resource centers may use this as a template when developing
similar tools.
A Spanish version is available for download and/or printing on the medical home website in the family section, http://www.medhomeportal.org/.
Related Grant Initiatives
This section provides information on
current state grants that are working on medical home initiatives.
This includes the grant abstract as well as key contacts
for the grant.
The Mountain States Regional Collaborative (AZ, CO, MT, NM, NV, TX, UT & WV) was awarded a Medical Home Visting Professorship (2008)
Medical Home Visiting Professorship Pilot Program
The American Academy of Pediatrics National Center for Medical Home Initiatives for Children with Special Needs and the American College of Medical Genetics' National Coordinating Center for the Regional Genetics and Newborn Screening Service Collaboratives (NCC) in partnership with the ACMG and MCHB recently developed a pilot visiting professorship program. This program focuses on the specific topic areas of genetics and medical home and also establishing linkages between Regional Genetics and Newborn Screening Services Collaboratives (RCs) and AAP Chapters.
Utah Family Voices Family to Family Health Information
This is an ongoing project that has an established a Family to Family Health Information Center that provides information, referral, education and support to families of children and youth with special health care needs and professional partners through out the state. Family/professional partnerships are a key concept in all areas of project activities. The initial project started October 1, 2004 with a grant from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and was successfully funded to continue and enhance the Center through a grant from the Maternal And Child Health Bureau in June 2007 and will contine through May 2010. This project works in partnership with the Utah Parent Center, the Bureau of Children with Special Health Care Needs, the Utah Medical Home Program and the Utah Regional Leadership Education in Nuerodevelopmental Disabilities Program. A vital function is to continue to partner and help to support the family section of the nationally recognized Utah Collaborative Medical Home website.
Name: Gina Pola-money
Contact: Utahfamilyvoices@juno.com
Early Hearing Detection & Intervention (EHDI) Contact(s):
State EHDI programs promote universal newborn hearing screening,
develop effective tracking and follow-up as a part of the
public health system, promote appropriate and timely diagnosis
of the hearing loss, prompt enrollment in appropriate Early
Intervention, ensure a medical home for all newborns and
strive to eliminate geographic and financial barriers to
service access.
Name: Rich Harward M.S.
Contact: Phone: 801-584-8215 | Fax: 801-584-8492
| rharward@utah.gov
URLEND Utah Regional Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental Disabilities http://urlend.org/
The purpose of the URLEND Program is to provide opportunities for personnel from a variety of health related disciplines to increase knowledge and skills in providing services and supports to children with neurodevelopmental disabilities and their families as part of an interdisciplinary team.
The Utah Regional Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental Disabilities-Autism Enhanced (URLEND-AE) is a new supplemental award (September, 2008) from the Maternal Child Health Bureau. It was awarded to the URLEND faculty to provide increased training to pre-service and in-serve professionals to meet the needs of individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders. There is an urgent public health need to increase the number of professionals who can provide educational information, assessment, and diagnostic services to rule in/out ASD, conduct research on ASD including with evaluation and screening tools, and provide evidence-based interventions to individuals with ASD (Combating Autism Act, 2006).
Name: Judith Holt, PhD Judith@cpd2.usu.edu
Sarah Winter, MD Sarah.winter@hsc.utah.edu
CHARM Child Health Advanced Records Management
http://charm.health.utah.gov/
The Utah Department of Health (UDOH) has established the
Child Health Advanced Record Management (CHARM) Program
to develop integrated data sets to produce an accurate and
useful electronic child health profile. The CHARM project
is funded in part by the HRSA MCHB State Systems Development
Initiative (SSDI). The CHARM initiative involves a collaborative
effort to create an electronic health record for every
child in Utah and allow real-time digital access and data
sharing among authorized health care programs and partners.
CHARM is being developed to provide an easy to use, technology
based way of providing access to integrated health information
at the point of service. The long-term goal of CHARM is
to integrate early childhood databases to provide Utah families,
private and public health care providers with secure, confidential
access to a comprehensive, integrated public health database
to track the health of Utah children.
Champions for Inclusive Communities: Early Intervention
Research Institute, Utah State University: http://www.championsinc.org
Purpose: This national center provides
national leadership to the Division of Services for Children
with Special Health Needs (DSCSHN), Title V leaders and
their partners in achieving the division's outcome #5: Service
systems for children with special health care needs will
be organized so families can use them easily and be satisfied
with their services. Activities include: a) website liked
to relevant initiatives to support communities, b) products
and strategies for collaboration and integration of services,
c) identification of evidence-based practices to achieve
outcome #5, and d) a community recognition program.
Genetics MCHB Grant: Genetics
MCHB Grant 
Purpose: The purpose of the Utah Genetics
Implementation Project (UGIP) is to ensure that appropriate
newborn conditions are screened in Utah, and to provide
an enhanced system of care for Children with Special Health
Care Needs (CSHCN) with these conditions through data integration,
medical homes, and, when appropriate, early intervention.
Hemophilia MCHB Grant: Hemophilia
MCHB Grant 
Project Period: June 1, 2002 through May
31, 2005
Purpose: The purpose of this proposal is
to continue the family-centered, community-based comprehensive
hemophilia care supporting the successful existing structure
of Hemophilia Treatment Centers (HTCs) in MCHB Region VIII.
Partners in the State
This section provides information on who in the state
(individuals and agencies) are working together to create
medical homes for children.
American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) Chapter: Email
Cathy Oyler at: coyler@ips-uaap.org
American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) Chapter:
www.aafp.org/chapterweb/utah.html
Title V Block Grant to States
Title V of the Social Security Act is one of the largest
Federal block grant programs. It leads the nation in ensuring
the health of all mothers, infants, children, adolescents,
and children with special health care needs (CSHCN). Title
V is administered by the Maternal and Child Health Bureau
(MCHB) as part of the Health Resources and Services Administration,
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Title V and Children with Special Health Care
Needs
MCHB Objective: Support development and
implementation of comprehensive, culturally competent,
coordinated systems of care for the estimated 18 million
U.S. children who have or are at risk for chronic physical,
developmental, behavioral or emotional conditions and
who also require health and related services of a type
or amount beyond that required by children generally.
MCH Contact
Nan Streeter
Director, Maternal and Child Health
Address: PO Box 142001
Salt Lake City, UT 84114-2001
Phone: 801-538-6869| Fax: 801-538-9409
Email: nanstreeter@utah.gov
CSHCN Contact
Holly Williams
Bureau Director, Children with Special Health Care Needs
Address: PO Box 144610
Salt Lake City, UT 84114-4610
Phone: 801-584-8202 | Fax: 801-584-8488
801-584-8488
Email: hollywilliams@utah.gov
Baby Watch Early Intervention/Part C Coordinator:
The Program for Infants and Toddlers with Disabilities (Part
C of IDEA) is a federal grant program that assists states
in operating a comprehensive statewide program of early
intervention services for infants and toddlers with disabilities,
ages birth through age 2 years, and their families.
Name: Susan Ord, Part C Coordinator
Contact: Phone: (801) 584-8441| Fax:
(801) 584-8496 | Email: sord@utah.gov
Web Site: www.utahbabywatch.org/
Section 619/Special Education for ages 3-5 Coordinators:
This program provides free appropriate public education
(FAPE) for children, ages 3 through 5 years, with disabilities:
Name: Connie Nink, 619 Coordinator
Contact: Phone: (801) 538-7948 | Fax:
(801) 538-7991 | Email: cnink@usoe.k12.ut.us
Web site: www.usoe.k12.ut.us/sars/
State Interagency Coordinating Council (ICC) Chairs:
The ICC advises appropriate agencies on the unmet needs
in early childhood special education and early intervention
programs for children with disabilities, assists in the
development and implementation of policies that constitute
a statewide system, and assists all appropriate agencies
in achieving full participation, coordination, and cooperation
for implementation of statewide system.
Name: Eileen Chamberland
Contact:
801-221-9930 ext. 110 | fax 801-221-1649 |echamberland@kotm.org
Name: Tandi Cichoski
Contact:
801-374-3539 | dcichoski2002@yahoo.com
Name: Debbie Justice
Contact: 435-673-5353 | fax 435-673-5393 | djustice@tlc4families.org
University of Utah Department of Pediatrics
Contact: Chuck Norlin MD
Website: http://www.ped.med.utah.edu
Utah Pediatric Partnership to Improve Healthcare
Quality is a collaborative effort by organziations and individuals with a common interest in promoting evidence-based best practices and assisting physicians in implementing quality improvement at a practice level.
Name: Sandra Debry, MBA Sandra.debry@hsc.utah.edu
Website: www.upiqhome.org
Utah State University/ Centers for Persons with
Disabilities and Early Intervention Research Institute
Website: http://www.cpd.usu.edu/
Utah Clicks
Website: www.utahclicks.org
Resources/Documents
Utah Clicks www.utahclicks.org
(previously “Opening Utah’s Doors”) helps
families find and apply for state programs and services.
You can now fill out and complete applications for a variety
of Utah programs using this streamlined process.
Utah Collaborative Medical Home Website
www.medhomeportal.org
Measuring and Monitoring: eiri.usu.edu/projects/MandM/
State Waiver Information: www.cms.hhs.gov/MedicaidStWaivProgDemoPGI/08_WavMap.asp
Waivers are the result of a process that allows state Medicaid
agencies to apply for and receive permission from HCFA to
provide services not otherwise covered by Medicaid and/or
to do so in ways not described by the Social Security Act.
Most Medicaid managed care programs require Waivers. The
Waivers, which can differ greatly, are known by their numbers
(1115, 1119), or as home-and community-based, or as Katie
Beckett Waivers.
Educational Initiatives
This section provides information on training initiatives
on the medical home. Some states will discuss their outreach
projects in relation to physicians, families, and the community.
No information is currently available for this category.
Utah Pediatric Partnership to Improve Healthcare
Quality:
www.upiqhome.org is a collaborative effort by organizations
and individuals with a common interest in promoting evidence-based
best practices and assisting physicians in implementing
quality improvement at the practice level.
URLEND Utah Regional Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental
Disabilities http://urlend.org/
The purpose of the URLEND Program is to provide opportunities
for personnel from a variety of health related disciplines
to increase knowledge and skills in providing services and
supports to children with neurodevelopmental disabilities
and their families as part of an interdisciplinary team
Screening
Initiatives
This section provides information on surveillance
and screening initiatives in the state. State Newborn Screening & Genetics Programs:
http://health.utah.gov/newbornscreening/
This program provides a statewide system for early identification
and referral of newborns with metabolic, endocrine and hematologic
disorders that can produce mental retardation, disability
or death if not treated early. The disorders are congenital
hypothyroidism, galactosemia, hemoglobinopathies, congenital
adrenal hyperplasia, biotinidase, and disorders of organic
acid, fatty acid and amino acid metabolism. In 2005, 99.5%
of all Utah newborns (51,517 births) were screened for the
state’s mandated disorders.
Newborn Hearing Screening / Early Hearing Detection
and Intervention (EHDI):
http://www.infanthearing.org/states/utah/index.html
CSHCN is responsible for the legislative mandate to provide
hearing screening for all Utah’s newborns and to keep
a current database of the results and activities concurrent
with this service. In 2007, 98% (52,835) of all Utah newborns
were screened for hearing loss in 42 birthing facilities
statewide. In 2005, Hearing Speech and Vision Services (of
CSHCN) received a three-year HRSA grant to help improve
the statewide system and reduce loss to follow-up. HSVS also collaborates with UDOH programs
to improve data integration for newborns and infants with funding from a CDC EHDI grant.
Assuring Better Health and Child Development (ABCD)
Program:Project Completed
http://12.109.133.213/_catdisp_page.cfm?LID=2ED00011-7622-11D6-BD1500A0CC76FF4C
The Assuring Better Child Health and Development (ABCD)
Program is funded by the Commonwealth Fund, administered
by National Academy of State Health Policy, and designed
to assist states in improving the delivery of early child
development services for low-income children and their families.
ABCD II: Project Completed
http://12.109.133.213/_docdisp_page.cfm?LID=D7D80609-B1EA-452C-96078F6D2E884FFF
The ABCD II Initiative, launched in 2003, is designed to
assist states in building the capacity of Medicaid programs
to deliver care that supports children’s healthy mental
development.
State Resources on the Internet
Note: The information provided on the state pages was submitted
by the state medical home teams. As this is not an exhaustive
list, please let us know if you have additions for your
state resource page. You can contact us at: medical
home@aap.org.
Last Updated
October 23, 2008
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