improve care of children
The Adopt-A-Doc Program in the School of Medicine's Department of Pediatrics has launched a pilot project called Building Medical Homes to promote the care and services pediatric patients receive.
Funded in 2001 by the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven, Adopt-A-Doc is a community-based program to improve health care for children in New Haven and the surrounding communities.
The program provides medical students doing their residency in pediatrics with an understanding of the importance of social, cultural and economic factors in the health and functioning of children. It emphasizes intensive neighborhood involvement to help pediatric residents become culturally competent and skillful in their interactions with families and community resources that serve children. The program also seeks to improve the physicians' expertise as advocates for children, particularly those living in poverty.
One of the goals of Building Medical Homes is to increase access to preventive medical care.
"Despite the recognized importance of primary preventive health care, a large proportion of children in Connecticut do not have an identified primary source of care and do not see a physician for regular preventive care," says Dr. Brian Forsyth, associate professor of pediatrics and the creator of Adopt-A-Doc. According to state statistics only 54% of eligible children in Connecticut received preventive health care in 2001.
Preventive health care services for children are optimally provided with an ongoing relationship of mutual trust and respect among health care providers, children and families, notes Forsyth. Because of the continuity of these relationships, the settings in which children receive such health care are often referred to as "medical homes."
The goals of the Building Medical Homes project are to understand the factors that affect families' use of medical homes and to explore ways to promote their use. This project will contribute to the development of the health-care component of the "First Years First" initiative of the Community Foundation of Greater New Haven, which promotes the health and development of young children.
Diana Edmonds, community coordinator for the Adopt-A-Doc Program, will conduct the project under the supervision of Forsyth, who is also medical director of the Pediatric Primary Care Center at Yale-New Haven Hospital.
Forsyth and Edmonds will visit the homes of 36 children who do not have a medical home. They will work with parents to understand why they do not have a medical home and to facilitate maintenance of a medical home; identify systems-level barriers that are considered surmountable for achieving greater use of medical homes; and identify key organizations and individuals that can promote greater use of medical homes in the New Haven community.
In addition to The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven, The Connecticut Health Foundation, The Arthur Vining Davis Foundation and the New Haven Enterprise Community have supported the efforts of the Adopt-A-Doc Program.
-- By Karen Peart
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