Parent-Provider Partnerships for Referral Communication

One highly-promoted, evidence-based model for chronic illness service delivery for children is the Care Model for Child Health in the Medical Home. The Medical Home (MH) model has been promoted as way to improve quality while making care more efficient. Communication among members of the health care team is an essential part of the model, with sharing of care between providers preferred by families, PCPs and specialists. However, communication between referring and consulting physicians is frequently missing. Failure of communication can produce uncoordinated care, which may contribute to unmet family needs, duplication or omission of needed medical services, and medical errors.

Data on effectiveness of specific MH interventions, especially in children, are scarce. A large intervention in the MH setting was tested using written care plans and use of forms as tools to promote communication with specialists. Results indicated decreases of 40 to 70% in parent reports of lost work/school time, ER visits, and hospital admissions. Additional studies produced decreased hospitalizations and emergency room use in children.

Family-centered care (FCC), a Medical Home core component, has been conceptualized for measurement purposes as having four components: communication with health care providers, shared decision making, providing families with needed information, and self-care management and support. Interventions to improve FCC through parent-to-parent support groups and community-based support have produced increased parent confidence and problem-solving ability. Studies of asthma have shown that teaching primary care providers to take a family-centered approach to medication prescribing as part of an overall education protocol improves symptoms and decreases follow-up visits, and using a family coordinator to help physicians and parents interact more effectively is integral to improving asthma outcomes.

Shared decision-making (SDM), an element of FCC and an approach favored by family advocacy groups to help parents achieve the greatest benefits for their children with special needs, is addressed by our proposed intervention. Merely providing information to patients and families is not sufficient; families must be able to express preferences, participate in dialogue, and make informed decisions as partners with physicians.

The proposed project addresses the health care quality gaps outlined above by improving primary care-specialty-parent communication, family-centered care, and shared decision-making within the MH model. It also addresses knowledge gaps by examining the effectiveness of an important recommended component of the MH and investigating the relationship between the intervention and both process and outcome measures, in a "real-world" practice setting. If the aims of the project are achieved, we will have discovered a practical way to improve care that can be promoted to payers and policymakers.