Early Childhood Pediatric Model
A growing body of evidence in health policy, neuroscience, and child development suggests that early childhood is the key window of opportunity to optimize lifetime trajectories for the population with the potential to improve physical and behavioral health, productivity, and well-being in adulthood. The United States performs poorly across child health indicators when compared to other developed nations.
- Universal screening for unmet medical and psycho-social needs of infants, children and their families occurs routinely during clinical touchpoints.
- Telehealth visits replace at least half of well-child visits for healthy children, and additional in person well-child visits are provided to medical fragile children and children with special healthcare needs. Lay health coaches support care of children subject to major social stressors.
- To improve access, communication hubs match families to community programs byneed, facilitate communication between healthcare providers and community-based support programs, and enable long-term outcomes tracking to monitor and assess community program efficacy.
Projects and Outcomes
Net Percent reduction in total annual American health care spending: 1.29% Net annual savings $46.5 billion / Total annual American health care spending in 2018 $3.6 trillion . Additional downstream savings outside of the health care system includes potential contribution to an anticipated annual savings throughout childhood of $1,000 per child who becomes school ready and an anticipated annual savings throughout adulthood until age 65 years old of $3,000 per child who becomes school ready. In childhood these savings are primarily through decreased costs to special education and the child welfare system. In adulthood these savings are primarily through decreased prevalence of chronic health conditions and decreased interactions with the criminal justice system.
