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Health care providers and insurers make high-quality, comprehensive health care (including preventive, acute, emergency, and chronic care) available, accessible, and affordable to all infants and young children. Child health care meets the standards of care set by the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Family Physicians, and the American College of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners.
Child health services are delivered primarily within the context of a "medical home," where care is provided and supervised by qualified child health specialists, and continuity of care and personalized relationships between health professionals and families are maintained over time. The child's medical home is incorporated into emergency care, acute care, and follow-up.
In addition to competent medical care, health services for children and their families include:
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| The Codman Square Health Center in Boston is a community-based, ambulatory care center that provides primary and urgent care onsite. The center employs a broad range of medical professionals including family practice physicians, OB/GYNs, pediatricians, dentists, nurse midwives, optometrists, social workers, and psychologists. Staff are multi-lingual and multi-cultural to meet the needs of a diverse community of clients. www.codman.org
Unity Health Care in Washington, D.C. provides an array of high-quality medical services to medically underserved, uninsured, and homeless persons, regardless of ability to pay, through a network of clinics operating in homeless shelters and community agencies throughout the D.C. area. www.unityhealthcare.org | |
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- Nutrition counseling, with referrals to supplementary nutrition as needed (through WIC, food stamps, food pantries, and meal programs)
- Links to (or provision of) health education, parent education, and family support
- Assistance to families trying to obtain health insurance
- Time for providers to talk with patients about their concerns and to develop warm, mutually respectful relationships
- Information and support for the demands of parenting, including the essentials of infant development
- Pleasant settings and convenient times and locations for child care
Providers of pediatric care pay attention to the living conditions of the children they see, including homelessness, domestic violence, and dangers posed by the home or neighborhood environment. Providers take responsibility for connecting families with people and agencies who can help them deal with such problems.
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| The Boston Medical Center's Department of Pediatrics (www.bmc.org/pediatrics/special/), recognizing “that medical care doesn't mean just caring for illnesses or injuries, but treating the whole child and family,” provides onsite assistance to families with health-related needs. The Family Advocacy Program provides legal assistance to families with problems relating to housing, public benefits, domestic violence, nutrition, health care, employment, education and immigration; educates health care professionals to identify poverty-based barriers to health; and addresses systemic problems and gaps in services through multidisciplinary policy advocacy. Project HEALTH (www.projecthealth.org/) seeks to interrupt the link between poverty and poor health by leveraging community resources to address needs that range from swim programs for asthmatic children to exercise and nutrition programs for obese children and housing for families trapped in unsafe living conditions. Reach Out and Read (www.reachoutandread.org) promotes early literacy by disseminating new books and advice about the importance of reading aloud through pediatric exam rooms. | |
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Providers of routine pediatric care make health screenings and developmental assessments easily accessible to all families. They provide or link families promptly to follow-up, diagnostic, and treatment services by appropriate specialists (including hearing, speech, vision, and physical therapy professionals) and community resources.
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| Healthy Steps for Young Children emphasizes a close relationship between health care professionals and mothers and fathers in addressing the physical, emotional, and intellectual development of children from birth to age three. The program’s Healthy Steps Specialists, who have special training in child development, participate on health care teams. The program uses enhanced well-child visits, home visits, materials for parents, periodic child development screening and family health assessment, a child development telephone information line, parent groups, links to community resources, and training institutes to enhance the knowledge and skills of pediatric clinicians. Healthy Steps was launched in 1994 by the Commonwealth Fund and has formed partnerships with nearly 70 funding sources and 24 pediatric and family practice sites across the country. | |
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Systems outside the health care field (such as child care and income assistance programs) help raise immunization rates without using immunization status as a barrier to receiving other benefits. Dental professionals make high-quality, regular dental assessments and dental care available to all children. They make sure that child health providers, children, parents, and other caregivers are informed about the importance of dental health and oral health habits.
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