Priority Need: Promote Developmental Screenings Among Children
NPM 6: Developmental Screening for Children
Percent of children, ages 9 through 35 months, who received a developmental screening using a parent-completed screening tool in the past year
NPM 6 Strategies:
6.1a Develop a Physician Outreach campaign to increase the number of providers utilizing standardized developmental screening and supportive services available through Public Health and Help Me Grow.
6.1b Identify a physician champion to provide peer-to-peer coaching and education regarding developmental screening.
6.1c Provide feedback on referrals to primary care providers to encourage care coordination and future referrals.
6.2 Provide 10 total trainings annually via the state office to community partners and provider practices through collaborative partnerships with medical and maternal and child health agencies
Newborn Screening
NBS will continue early identification of developmental disorders as an integral function of the primary care medical home. MCH programs have been very successful in promoting developmental screening and developmental milestones to families and community partners during home visits, outreach activities, and back to school events. MCH will focus efforts on providing outreach and education to select physician offices and community partners to increase developmental screening within their facilities. The state office will work collaboratively with the local public health workforce to identify physician offices in their communities that do not include developmental screenings results with referrals to public health programs. Champions from medical societies, including Georgia Chapter American Academy of Pediatrics (GAAAP) and the Georgia Academy of Family Physicians (GAFP), will be engaged to help facilitate the delivery of outreach to physicians. Through partnership with key leaders in the local public health workforce, select programs will receive education about developmental screening and will develop strategies to incorporate developmental screening into their protocols.
MCH programs will work collaboratively to streamline internal opportunities to increase developmental screening of young children and establish a process to reduce duplicate and redundant screening and referrals. The success of these efforts will be measured by the coordination of screening in children participating in both Children 1st and Home Visiting Programs.
Children 1st
Children 1st will continue efforts to expand telehealth capacity across MCH programs with the CARES Act: Maternal and Child Health Telehealth Capacity in Public Health Systems Direct Award by AMCHP. Children 1st will work with the funded districts to provide WebEx training sessions. The program will continue investigating options for obtaining parental consent before implementing telehealth.
Children 1st will also continue to promote awareness of the program and the child health referral system at the state and local levels. Children 1st will continue to work with early intervention program partners, Babies Can’t Wait and Help Me Grow®, to promote the agency’s Autism screening initiative to families and physicians.
Refugee Health
MCH will continue to collaborate with the SRHP, Child Health, and Health Promotion Evaluation staff to develop and implement the promotion of developmental screenings in the Refugee population. The Refugee Pediatric Center will continue to provide referrals to the DeKalb Board of Health Refugee Clinic (Kaiser Permanente). Interpreters will continue to be available at the Refugee Pediatric Center for Arabic, Somali, and Swahili languages. The Refugee Health team will monitor referrals and developmental screening outreach materials, including C1st, BCW, CMS, EHDI, Autism, and Learn the Signs. Act Early., will be provided.
Priority Need: Increase the Number of Children, Both With and Without Special Health Care Needs, Who Have a Medical Home
NPM 11: Medical Home
NPM 11 Strategies:
11.1a Expand the use of telehealth technology to improve access to audiological and early intervention services for children and youth with special health care needs.
11.1b Facilitate efforts to educate families about telehealth as an option for care.
11.1c Provide ongoing evaluation of the Department’s telehealth network to ensure pediatric specialty services meet the needs of families and patients.
11.1d Develop and implement a quality improvement plan for Title V’s Children and Youth with Special Health Care Needs program to identify opportunities in which telehealth technology may be used to improve medical home access.
11.2a Expand the capacity of HMG liaisons to help families navigate/access comprehensive services.
11.2b Improve access to information and resources for CYSHCN.
11.2c Develop an outreach plan to engage partners, providers, and families in the utilization of HMG, a shared resource to assist families to navigate the early childhood system/
11.3a Engage stakeholders with a shared vision and common understanding for the needs of a medical home and willingness to join into an approach to solve the problem through agreed-upon actions.
11.3b Construct an informative PowerPoint/Webinar that can be utilized to educate partners on the importance of encouraging families to seek a medical home and that will offer stakeholders’ innovative ideas on how to expand the concept of a medical home, which ultimately will increase the number of families with a medical home.
Medical Home
In the upcoming year, Child Health will continue to focus on providing education, support and resources to families concerning the importance and benefits of a medical home for all children.
Help Me Grow®
HMG® will continue to be a resource for ensuring a medical home for all children. Liaisons will increase capacity to better support families that are referred and will participate in various learning and training opportunities to strengthen the repository of resources available to families. Liaisons will receive training on the importance of a medical home and knowledge to increase opportunities to identify children needing a medical home to support the new Medical Home priority.
HMG® will continue to focus on activities selected to strengthen the presence of the four core components of HMG® in Georgia: Centralized Access Point, Family and Community Outreach, Child Health Care Provider Outreach, and Data Collection and Analysis. The program will evaluate the effectiveness and use of the HMG® Central Access Point to ensure a high-quality experience and customer service. HMG® will identify and share data for other child health call lines transferred to the HMG® Central Access Point (CAP).
Priority Need: Promote Oral Health to All Populations
NPM 13.2: Preventive Dental Visit
Percent of children, ages 1 through 17, who had a preventive dental visit in the past year
NPM 13.2 Strategies:
13.2.1 Create and update a State Oral Health Surveillance Plan functions to identify data sources, collection strategies, collection timeframes, and dissemination approaches.
13.2.2 Coordinate and provide district coordinator meetings periodically where resources are shared, updates are provided from state and district programs, continuing education or presentations are offered, and technical assistance is offered as needed.
13.2.3 Work with Healthy Mothers Healthy Babies and other external partners by providing subject matter expertise and strategic feedback.
13.2.4 Support district programs partnering with local schools to promote school-based/school-linked sealant and oral health prevention programs that target schools where 50 percent or more of the student population are eligible for free and reduced lunch.
13.2.5 Support district program staff going to local schools and providing oral health education programs.
13.2.6 Provide training to local water plant operators on the value of community water fluoridation and technical assistance to improve monthly reporting from local community water systems.
Oral Health
In the upcoming year, the Oral Health Program will continue plans to implement the American Academy of Pediatrics’ “Book, Brush, Bed” program, which strives to build nighttime routines for children around brushing teeth for two minutes with fluoridated toothpaste.
The Oral Health Program plans to conduct a Basic Screening Survey (BSS) of third grade and kindergarten students in the 2021-2022 academic year across the state. The BSS is supported by a CDC grant and is recommended to be carried out every five years. This survey seeks to identify the percent of children with a history of decay, percent of children with active untreated decay, and presence of protective dental sealants. This data will allow the Oral Health program, with support from MCH epidemiology staff, to investigate oral health disparities among different populations.
The Oral Health program staff will continue to serve on advisory boards and work groups on oral health for external partners, which includes Healthy Mothers Healthy Babies Coalition, Georgia Department of Early Care and Learning, Georgia Cancer Control Consortium HPV workgroup, among other stakeholders.
The Oral Health program will continue to promote school sealant programs, an evidence-based dental decay prevention measure of placing dental sealants on molar teeth in the school setting, in the upcoming year as children return to in-person school. This service occurs at a location where children congregate and does not require parents to be present, which helps eliminates barriers such as scheduling around the parents’ workday and finding childcare for other children in the home. Dental screenings, fluoride varnish application, and oral health education are also components of the school-based program. Efforts to make referrals to dental providers and find dental homes for these children will continue so other dental needs can be addressed.
The Oral Health program will continue to partner with district staff and external partners to increase the presence of school sealant programs within Georgia.
Other Child Health Programs
Early Brain Development Initiative
MCH and Early Brain Development will continue to work closely to monitor shared goals and improve processes and strategies to achieve goals in the coming year. DPH will continue to support the implementation of Reach Out and Read in public health settings like WIC and immunization visits, and through home visiting programs. DPH will support 45 Reach Out and Read sites across the state and hopes to on board five additional sites this year and plans to expand TWMB for birthing hospitals to at least five birthing hospitals across the state.
Vision
DPH will continue to assist in the completion, compilation, and assessment of the Certificate of Vision, Hearing, Dental, and Nutrition Screening form required for the school admittance in Georgia.
MCH will continue to support evidence-based home visiting programs, especially to the more vulnerable children in the most at-risk communities, to enhance parenting and support young children’s early development with improved long-term outcomes for children, parents, and communities. The FACS program will continue to develop stronger partnerships and coordination between awardees of Healthy Start, MIECHV, and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, Part C Program (IDEA Part C Program). MIECHV and Part C Program staff will meet regularly to discuss best practices and steps necessary to ensure collaboration with programs and community partners.
Immunizations
In the upcoming year, the Georgia Immunization program will continue communication efforts with MCH to strengthen coordination and collaboration. The Perinatal Hepatitis B Prevention Program will work with DPH’s legal team to create a new regulation to require maternal hepatitis B and hepatitis C serologic testing for every pregnant woman in Georgia.
Child Occupant Safety Program (COSP)
Injury Prevention will continue to distribute child safety seats to children, including specialized child safety restraint systems for children with special health care needs. The number of lives saved will continue to be documented through Teddy Bear Stickers (TBS) placed on the child safety seats that are distributed. Child passenger safety trainings to internal and external stakeholders will continue. Staff has developed online modular trainings and will continue utilizing non-traditional methods to conduct outreach with agencies. Online platforms, such as Zoom, Skype, GoToMeeting, and Microsoft Teams, are being utilized. The program will continue to offer a 16-hour Special Needs transportation program- “Safe Travel for All Children: Transporting Children with Special Health Care Needs.”
Physical Activity for Children
Georgia Shape will continue building a network of partners to support its commitment to improving the health of Georgia’s children by offering assistance and opportunity to achieve a greater level of overall fitness. The Fitnessgram tool will continue to be used for SHAPE’s annual standardized fitness assessment to evaluate five different parts of health-related fitness, including aerobic capacity, muscular strength, muscular endurance, flexibility and body composition using objective criteria. Reports will also be generated providing valuable individual, school, and state-level data to empower parents, schools, and the community to best access the current health needs for children. Georgia Shape will continue to work with 120 partners to decrease childhood Body Mass Index measures while increasing childhood aerobic capacity measures and physical activity levels.
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