Project Access: Strategies to improve care for children and youth with epilepsy: illustrations of recommendations in the IOM report on the epilepsies.

Project Access (PA), funded by the Maternal and Child Health Bureau (MCHB) of the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), provided grants to state and local agencies to improve awareness, provide education, design, test, pilot and evaluate system changes, and improve quality of services and access to early diagnosis and comprehensive, coordinated health care and related services for children and youth with epilepsy residing in rural and medically underserved areas. In 2011, the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies (IOM) published a series of 13 recommendations addressing unmet psychosocial, medical, and public health needs of individuals with epilepsy, including children and youth. This paper examines the synergy between these two projects showing how the strategies utilized in the PA demonstration projects can address the IOM recommendations and how these recommendations can inform future initiatives for improving care for children and youth with epilepsy.

Illinois medical home project: pilot intervention and evaluation.

A "medical home" provides accessible, continuous, comprehensive, family-centered, coordinated, compassionate, and culturally effective care. This study implemented and evaluated the pilot phase of a pediatric practice-directed medical home quality improvement (QI) project focused on improving primary care for children and youth with special health care needs (CYSHCN). Six practices received training, QI team development and facilitation, and receipt of mini-grants for QI projects.

The need for care coordination among children with special health care needs in Illinois.

Objectives: The objectives of this study were: 1) to estimate the need for care coordination among children with special health care needs (CSHCN) in Illinois, 2) to assess the need for care coordination among CSHCN in Illinois by sociodemographic, condition-related, and access to care factors, and 3) to discuss approaches for meeting the need for care coordination.

Methods: The study included 745 Illinois families interviewed as part of the State and Local Area Integrated Telephone Survey (SLAITS) of CSHCN. Classifying families of CSHCN as needing care coordination was based on three survey questions.