Closing the Gap: Foster Parents' Lived Experiences and Recommendations for Interdisciplinary Health-Care Providers.

This study explored barriers and facilitators to utilizing health-care services for foster youth, from the perspective of foster parents. There are nearly 437,283 youths in the United States foster care system. Youths living in locations that are different from their familial home situations have a significantly higher occurrence of physical and mental health illnesses than children who remain in their familial homes, increasing risk for homelessness, substance use and abuse, chronic long-term illnesses, and incarceration, thus placing additional burden on the health-care system.

Child Sexual Abuse Documentation in Primary Care Settings.

Primary care providers (PCPs) can play an important role in the continuity of care for children who experience sexual abuse (SA). We performed a retrospective, chart-based study of children 3 to 17 years old with SA history. Primary care medical records were reviewed for 2 years after a subspecialty SA evaluation.

Do children evaluated for maltreatment have higher subsequent emergency department and inpatient care utilization compared to a general pediatric sample?

Background: Child maltreatment leads to substantial adverse health outcomes, but little is known about acute health care utilization patterns after children are evaluated for a concern of maltreatment at a child abuse and neglect medical evaluation clinic.

Objective: To quantify the association of having a child maltreatment evaluation with subsequent acute health care utilization among children from birth to age three.

Participants And Setting: Children who received a maltreatment evaluation (N = 367) at a child abuse and neglect subspecialty clinic in an academic health system in the United States and the general pediatric population (N = 21,231).

What Do Child Abuse and Neglect Medical Evaluation Consultation Notes Tell Researchers and Clinicians?

Child abuse and neglect (CAN) medical experts provide specialized multidisciplinary care to children when there is concern for maltreatment. Their clinical notes contain valuable information on child- and family-level factors, clinical concerns, and service placements that may inform the needed supports for the family. We created and implemented a coding system for data abstraction from these notes.

Electronic Health Record Tools to Identify Child Maltreatment: Scoping Literature Review and Key Informant Interviews.

Objective: To prevent missed cases and standardize care, health systems are beginning to implement EHR-based screens (EHR-CA-S) and clinical decision supports systems (EHR-CA-CDSS) for the identification and management of child maltreatment. This study aimed to 1) document the existing research evidence on the performance of EHR-CA-S and EHR-CA-CDSS and 2) examine clinical perspectives regarding the use of such tools and factors that affect uptake.

Methods: We searched MEDLINE, Embase, EBSCO, Scopus, and CINAHL databases for English language articles published prior to November 2021 that describe and/or evaluated an EHR-CA-S and/or EHR-CA-CDSS involving 0 to 18-year olds.

Kinship Care and Foster Care: A Comparison of Out-of-Home Placement From the Perspective of Child Abuse Experts in North Carolina.

Children may be placed in either kinship or foster care, forms of out-of-home placement (OHP), if maltreatment is suspected. The American Academy of Pediatrics has identified them as children with special health needs requiring elevated care. While North Carolina has increased support for foster care, it is unclear whether similar support exists for kinship care.

Improving Timeliness of Medical Evaluations for Children Entering Foster Care.

Background And Objectives: The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends children in foster care (FC) have an initial medical evaluation within 3 days of custody initiation; however, this vulnerable population often suffers from disjointed care. Our aim was to improve the mean time to initial foster care evaluation (TIE) from 32 to <7 days within 12 months for children in FC in Durham County, North Carolina.

Methods: This study was a time series, quality improvement project used to target interventions within an academic clinic and a community agency.