Hamilton, NJ, May 25, 2021 — The Center for Health Care Strategies (CHCS) today announces the launch of Accelerating Child Health Transformation, a learning community that will work with 12 leading pediatric practices, a team of six family advisors, and subject matter experts in the field from across the nation to advance innovations for providing more equitable and family-focused care. Made possible with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and led by CHCS, the initiative aims to identify successful strategies to improve children’s health care delivery.
Over the last few years, the child health care field has begun to gradually shift from the traditional child-focused model of well and sick visits to a more preventive focus on children, their families, and the systems and communities with which they interact regularly. The significant challenges of the past year — disparities laid bare by the COVID-19 pandemic coupled with a national reckoning regarding racial inequities — amplify the need for the child health care field to push transformation forward more swiftly.
“Pediatric providers, alongside families, can play a critical role in supporting the healthy development of the children they serve,” said Martha Davis, MSS, senior program officer, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. “Leaders in the field have invested considerable energy on identifying opportunities to transform child health care — we will build on their work to accelerate broad adoption.”
Over nine months, the learning community participants will work together to identify strategies to support child health care transformation. Their work will focus on three key goals: (1) adopting anti-racist practices to advance health equity; (2) co-creating equitable partnerships with families and providers; and (3) identifying family strengths and health-related social needs to promote resilience. The initiative will also explore payment and accountability levers that support transformation. Participating pediatric sites, chosen for their innovative practices in pediatric health care services, include:
| • Child Health Clinic, Children’s Hospital Colorado, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus (Aurora, CO) • Westside Pediatric and Adolescent Clinic, Denver Health (Denver, CO) • University of New Mexico ADOBE Program (Albuquerque, NM) • Pediatrics Northwest (Tacoma, WA) • Primary Health Care (Des Moines, IA) | • The Center for Collaborative Primary Care, St. Christopher’s Pediatrics (Philadelphia, PA) • Hasbro Children’s Hospital Pediatric Primary Care (Providence, RI) • AtlantiCare Health Services, FQHC (Atlantic City, NJ) • Nemours Children’s Primary Care (Orlando, FL) • The Children’s Health Center, San Francisco General Hospital (San Francisco, CA) • Cincinnati’s Children’s Hospital Medical Center Academic Pediatric Primary Care (Cincinnati, OH) |
A team of six family representatives, led by Hala Durrah, MTA, patient family engagement consultant and advocate, were selected to represent the family voice and will engage directly with the sites during the learning community. These representatives are:
| • Nikki (Charisse) Montgomery, Executive Director, Madvocator Educational and Healthcare Advocacy Training • Louis Mendoza, Manager, Washington State Fathers Network • Morris Carr, Men's Health Coordinator, Access Community Health Network | • Tamela Milan, Community Engagement Specialist, Access Community Health Network • Emily Cervantes, Program Manager, Public Policy Research and Analysis, Colorado Latino Leadership, Advocacy, and Research Organization • Siddhant Srivastava, medical student, Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine, Ohio University |
“We are delighted to work with these exemplary pediatric sites and family advisors to advance pediatric health care transformation,” said Armelle Casau, PhD, senior program officer, Center for Health Care Strategies. “We look forward to sharing findings to further the efforts of providers, health systems, payers, and policymakers across the country to support better health and well-being for children nationwide.”
CHCS will distill lessons from the sites’ efforts, which will be shared broadly with stakeholders nationally. For more information, visit www.chcs.org.
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About the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
For more than 45 years the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has worked to improve health and health care. We are working alongside others to build a national Culture of Health that provides everyone in America a fair and just opportunity for health and well-being. For more information, visit www.rwjf.org. Follow the Foundation on Twitter at www.rwjf.org/twitter or on Facebook at www.rwjf.org/facebook.
About the Center for Health Care Strategies
The Center for Health Care Strategies (CHCS) is a nonprofit policy center committed to improving health care quality for people with low incomes. CHCS works with state and federal agencies, health plans, providers, and community-based organizations to develop innovative programs that better serve people with complex and high-cost health care needs.
