Acceptability and feasibility of screening with a pediatric care provider-led social determinants of health identification tool.

BACKGROUND: Complex social determinants of health may not be easily recognized by health care providers and pose a unique challenge in the vulnerable pediatric population where patients may not be able to advocate for themselves. The goal of this study was to examine the acceptability and feasibility of health care providers using an integrated brief pediatric screening tool in primary care and hospital settings. METHODS: The framework of the Child and Adolescent Needs and Strengths (CANS) and Pediatric Intermed tools was used to inform the selection of items for the 9-item Child and Adolescent Needs and Strengths-Pediatric Complexity Indicator (CANS-PCI). The tool consisted of three domains: biological, psychological, and social. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with health care providers in pediatric medical facilities in Ottawa, Canada. A low inference and iterative thematic synthesis approach was used to analyze the qualitative interview data specific to acceptability and feasibility. RESULTS: Thirteen health care providers participated in interviews. Six overarching themes were identified: acceptability, logistics, feasibility, pros/cons, risk, and privacy. Overall, participants agreed that a routine, trained provider-led pediatric tool for the screening of social determinants of health is important (n = 10, 76.9%), acceptable (n = 11; 84.6%), and feasible (n = 7, 53.8%). INTERPRETATION: Though the importance of social determinants of health are widely recognized, there are limited systematic methods of assessing, describing, and communicating amongst health care providers about the biomedical and psychosocial complexities of pediatric patients. Based on this study's findings, implementation of a brief provider-led screening tool into pediatric care practices may contribute to this gap.

Creating the necessary infrastructure for a trauma-informed system of care for children and youth.

Understanding and addressing the impact of adverse life events is an important priority in the design of helping systems. However, creating trauma-informed systems requires efforts to embed effective trauma-informed work in routine practice. This article discusses a model for developing trauma-informed systems using the Transformational Collaborative Outcomes Management (TCOM) framework, a strategy for engineering person-centered care. Person-centered care is naturally congruent with trauma-informed care. We describe the initial stages of implementation of a trauma-informed standardized assessment process to support the sustained evolution of trauma-informed care. Distinguishing between traumatic experiences and traumatic stress is fundamental to an effective trauma-informed system. We describe two sets of analyses-one in a statewide child welfare system and the other in a statewide behavioral health system. These projects found opportunities in the analysis of the detection of traumatic stress based on traumatic experiences to inform practice and policy. Being trauma-informed in child welfare is distinct from being trauma-informed in behavioral health. In child welfare, it appears that a number of children are resilient in the face of traumatic experiences and do not require trauma treatment interventions. However, delayed and missed traumatic stress responses are common. In behavioral health, misses often occur among adolescents, particularly boys, who engage in acting out behavior. Opportunities for the ongoing development of trauma-informed systems using the TCOM framework are discussed.

Evaluation of Telehealth in Child Behavioral Health Services Delivery During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

OBJECTIVE: The authors quantified the impact of the use of telehealth services on patient-level clinical outcomes among children with complex behavioral and emotional needs in Idaho during the COVID-19 pandemic by comparing data collected in 2020 with data for the same months in 2019. METHODS: Longitudinal statewide data of Child and Adolescent Needs and Strengths (CANS) assessments were extracted from Idaho's mental and behavioral health system. Prepandemic assessments were matched to midpandemic assessments. A linear mixed-effect model was used to explore four child-level outcomes: psychosocial strengths-building rate, rate of need resolution within a life-functioning domain, rate of need resolution within a behavior-emotional domain, and rate of need resolution within a high-risk behaviors domain. RESULTS: The number of new patients admitted to Idaho's state-funded mental and behavioral health program decreased almost twofold from April-December 2019 to April-December 2020 (N=4,458 vs. 2,794). For most children with complex needs, the use of telehealth was as effective in terms of strengths building and needs resolution as in-person services; for children whose caregivers had issues with access to transportation, availability of telehealth services improved outcomes for the children. CONCLUSIONS: The COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 was associated with a dramatic drop in the number of children served by Idaho's mental health program. Telehealth may effectively bridge mental health service delivery while patients and providers work toward the resolution of transportation issues or may serve as a more acceptable permanent format of service delivery for some populations.

The pediatric inflammatory bowel disease INTERMED: A new clinical tool to assess psychosocial needs.

OBJECTIVE: The adult INTERMED is used to determine case complexity and psychosocial needs. We developed and validated a pediatric version of the INTERMED for children and adolescents with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and assessed its utility in predicting healthcare utilization. METHODS: We performed a cross-sectional study of children (aged 8-17 y) with IBD (n = 148) and their parents, seen in a hospital-based clinic. Subjects completed semi-structured interviews that were scored on the 34 pIBD-INTERMED items. To assess inter-rater reliability, 40 interviews were videotaped and scored by a second assessor. Convergent and predictive validity were assessed by examining the relation of the pIBD-INTERMED to standardized measures of psychological, social, and family functioning, disease activity, and healthcare utilization. RESULTS: Correlational analyses supported the validity of all five pIBD-INTERMED domains with very good inter-rater reliability (median r = 0.87) and internal consistency (α = 0.91) for the total complexity index. Ratings of 2-3 on the pIBD-INTERMED "mental health/cognitive threat" item were associated with greater odds of behavior and social problems (CBCL-Internalizing scale OR = 7.27, 95% CI 2.17-24.36); CBCL-Externalizing scale OR = 24.79, 95% CI 5.00-122.84), depression (Children's Depression Inventory OR = 8.52, 95% CI 1.70-43.02) and anxiety (Multidimensional Anxiety for Children OR = 11.57, 95% CI 3.00-45.37). The pIBD-INTERMED complexity index added significantly to the prediction of healthcare utilization, beyond the contribution of disease severity. CONCLUSIONS: The pIBD-INTERMED is a reliable and valid tool for identifying psychosocial risks and needs of children with IBD. It can be used to guide planning of individualized care and enhance interdisciplinary pediatric IBD care.

Evaluating mental health service use during and after emergency department visits in a multisite cohort of Canadian children and youth.

OBJECTIVES: The goal of this study was to examine the mental health needs of children and youth who present to the emergency department (ED) for mental health care and to describe the type of, and satisfaction with, follow-up mental health services accessed. METHODS: A 6-month to 1.5-year prospective cohort study was conducted in three Canadian pediatric EDs and one general ED, with a 1-month follow-up post-ED discharge. Measures included 1) clinician rating of mental health needs, 2) patient and caregiver self-reports of follow-up services, and 3) interviews regarding follow-up satisfaction. Data analysis included descriptive statistics and the Fisher's exact test to compare sites. RESULTS: The cohort consisted of 373 children and youth (61.1% female; mean age 15.1 years, 1.5 standard deviation). The main reason for ED presentations was a mental health crisis. The three most frequent areas of need requiring action were mood (43.8%), suicide risk (37.4%), and parent-child relational problems (34.6%). During the ED visit, 21.6% of patients received medical clearance, 40.9% received a psychiatric consult, and 19.4% were admitted to inpatient psychiatric care. At the 1-month post-ED visit, 84.3% of patients/caregivers received mental health follow-up. Ratings of service recommendations were generally positive, as 60.9% of patients obtained the recommended follow-up care and 13.9% were wait-listed. CONCLUSIONS: Children and youth and their families presenting to the ED with mental health needs had substantial clinical morbidity, were connected with services, were satisfied with their ED visit, and accessed follow-up care within 1-month with some variability.

Out-of-home placement decision-making and outcomes in child welfare: a longitudinal study.

After children enter the child welfare system, subsequent out-of-home placement decisions and their impact on children's well-being are complex and under-researched. This study examined two placement decision-making models: a multidisciplinary team approach, and a decision support algorithm using a standardized assessment. Based on 3,911 placement records in the Illinois child welfare system over 4 years, concordant (agreement) and discordant (disagreement) decisions between the two models were compared. Concordant decisions consistently predicted improvement in children's well-being regardless of placement type. Discordant decisions showed greater variability. In general, placing children in settings less restrictive than the algorithm suggested ("under-placing") was associated with less severe baseline functioning but also less improvement over time than placing children according to the algorithm. "Over-placing" children in settings more restrictive than the algorithm recommended was associated with more severe baseline functioning but fewer significant results in rate of improvement than predicted by concordant decisions. The importance of placement decision-making on policy, restrictiveness of placement, and delivery of treatments and services in child welfare are discussed.

Patterns of out-of-home placement decision-making in child welfare.

Out-of-home placement decision-making in child welfare is founded on the best interest of the child in the least restrictive setting. After a child is removed from home, however, little is known about the mechanism of placement decision-making. This study aims to systematically examine the patterns of out-of-home placement decisions made in a state's child welfare system by comparing two models of placement decision-making: a multidisciplinary team decision-making model and a clinically based decision support algorithm. Based on records of 7816 placement decisions representing 6096 children over a 4-year period, hierarchical log-linear modeling characterized concordance or agreement, and discordance or disagreement when comparing the two models and accounting for age-appropriate placement options. Children aged below 16 had an overall concordance rate of 55.7%, most apparent in the least restrictive (20.4%) and the most restrictive placement (18.4%). Older youth showed greater discordant distributions (62.9%). Log-linear analysis confirmed the overall robustness of concordance (odd ratios [ORs] range: 2.9-442.0), though discordance was most evident from small deviations from the decision support algorithm, such as one-level under-placement in group home (OR=5.3) and one-level over-placement in residential treatment center (OR=4.8). Concordance should be further explored using child-level clinical and placement stability outcomes. Discordance might be explained by dynamic factors such as availability of placements, caregiver preferences, or policy changes and could be justified by positive child-level outcomes. Empirical placement decision-making is critical to a child's journey in child welfare and should be continuously improved to effect positive child welfare outcomes.

The Emergency Department Sickle Cell Assessment of Needs and Strengths (ED-SCANS): reliability and validity.

Emergency department (ED) management of adults with sickle cell disease (SCD) is complex and frustrating. The Emergency Department Sickle Cell Assessment of Needs and Strengths (ED-SCANS) is a research-based decision support and quality improvement (QI) tool to guide management of individual patients with SCD and can also be used to guide the development of ED protocols and other QI initiatives for this population. The study evaluated ED-SCANS' inter-rater reliability, face and utility validity among clinicians, and construct validity of anxiety, depression, and psychiatric or social service needs among patients. ED nurses and physicians found the ED-SCANS to be useful, relevant, and easy to use. Nurse practitioners can use the ED-SCANS to assess and manage individual patients. Clinical nurse specialists can use the ED-SCANS as a framework to guide departmental QI efforts.

Growth trajectories of maintenance variables related to refractory eating disorders in youth.

Despite decades of eating disorder (ED) research, studies of factors involved in long-term EDs are still lacking. This longitudinal study investigated the role of maintenance variables in a transdiagnostic adolescent ED sample. Participants included 275 adolescents who underwent specialized ED treatment. Hierarchical linear modeling confirmed a significant growth pattern of maintenance factors, wherein there was initial increase, then a decline during treatment, followed by a slight rebound post-treatment. Refractory status did not predict the variability in maintenance curves, suggesting that although this growth pattern existed, requiring a second treatment encounter did not explain the differences found in these patterns.

The HEADS-ED: a rapid mental health screening tool for pediatric patients in the emergency department.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: The American Academy of Pediatrics called for action for improved screening of mental health issues in the emergency department (ED). We developed the rapid screening tool home, education, activities/peers, drugs/alcohol, suicidality, emotions/behavior, discharge resources (HEADS-ED), which is a modification of "HEADS," a mnemonic widely used to obtain a psychosocial history in adolescents. The reliability and validity of the tool and its potential for use as a screening measure are presented. METHODS: ED patients presenting with mental health concerns from March 1 to May 30, 2011 were included. Crisis intervention workers completed the HEADS-ED and the Child and Adolescent Needs and Strengths-Mental Health tool (CANS MH) and patients completed the Children's Depression Inventory (CDI). Interrater reliability was assessed by using a second HEADS-ED rater for 20% of the sample. RESULTS: A total of 313 patients were included, mean age was 14.3 (SD 2.63), and there were 182 females (58.1%). Interrater reliability was 0.785 (P < .001). Correlations were computed for each HEADS-ED category and items from the CANS MH and the CDI. Correlations ranged from r = 0.17, P < .05 to r = 0.89, P < .000. The HEADS-ED also predicted psychiatric consult and admission to inpatient psychiatry (sensitivity of 82% and a specificity of 87%; area under the receiver operator characteristic curve of 0.82, P < .01). CONCLUSIONS: The results provide evidence to support the psychometric properties of the HEADS-ED. The study shows promising results for use in ED decision-making for pediatric patients with mental health concerns.

Emergency Department Sickle Cell Assessment of Needs and Strengths (ED-SCANS), a focus group and decision support tool development project.

OBJECTIVES: A decision support tool may guide emergency clinicians in recognizing assessment, analgesic and overall management, and health service delivery needs for patients with sickle cell disease (SCD) in the emergency department (ED). We aimed to identify data and process elements important in making decisions regarding evaluation and management of adult patients in the ED with painful episodes of SCD. METHODS: Qualitative methods using a series of focus groups and grounded theory were used. Eligible participants included adult clients with SCD and emergency physicians and nurses with a minimum of 1 year of experience providing care to patients with SCD in the ED. Patients were recruited in conjunction with annual SCD meetings, and providers included clinicians who were and were not affiliated with sickle cell centers. Groups were conducted until saturation was reached and included a total of two patient groups, three physician groups, and two nurse groups. Focus groups were held in New York, Durham, Chicago, New Orleans, and Denver. Clinician participants were asked the following three questions to guide the discussion: 1) what information would be important to know about patients with SCD in the ED setting to effectively care for them and help you identify patient analgesic, treatment, and referral needs? 2) What treatment decisions would you make with this information? and 3) What characteristics would a decision support tool need to have to make it meaningful and useful? Client participants were asked the same questions with rewording to reflect what they believed providers should know to provide the best care and what they should do with the information. All focus groups were audiotaped and transcribed. The constant comparative method was used to analyze the data. Two coders independently coded participant responses and identified focal themes based on the key questions. An investigator and assistant independently reviewed the transcripts and met until the final coding structure was determined. RESULTS: Forty-seven individuals participated (14 persons with SCD, 16 physicians, and 17 nurses) in a total of seven different groups. Two major themes emerged: acute management and health care utilization. Major subthemes included the following: physiologic findings, diagnostics, assessment and treatment of acute painful episodes, and disposition. The most common minor subthemes that emerged included past medical history, presence of a medical home (physician or clinic), individualized analgesic treatment plan for treatment of painful episodes, history of present illness, medical home follow-up available, patient-reported analgesic treatment that works, and availability of analgesic prescription at discharge. Additional important elements in treatment of acute pain episodes included the use of a standard analgesic protocol, need for fluids and nonpharmacologic interventions, and the assessment of typicality of pain presentation. The patients' interpretation of the need for hospital admission also ranked high. CONCLUSIONS: Participants identified several areas that are important in the assessment, management, and disposition decisions that may help guide best practices for SCD patients in the ED setting.

Evolving systems of care with total clinical outcomes management.

The current article proposes that further specification of the system of care concept is required. Based on the assertions that the system of care concept (a) refers to an ideal as opposed to an observable phenomenon, and (b) is engaged in offering transformational experiences, the authors propose that the system of care definition must be expanded to include measurement and outcomes monitoring strategies that extend beyond current quality improvement initiatives. The authors propose that communication across multiple levels is essential if the goal of offering transformational experiences to children and families is to be realized.

Predictors of residential placement following a psychiatric crisis episode among children and youth in state custody.

This study examined the extent and correlates of entry into residential care among 603 children and youth in state custody who were referred to psychiatric crisis services. Overall, 27% of the sample was placed in residential care within 12 months after their 1st psychiatric crisis screening. Among the children and youth placed in residential care, 51% were so placed within 3 months of their 1st crisis screening, with an additional 22% placed between 3 and 6 months after screening. Risk behavior and functioning, psychiatric hospitalization following screening, older age, placement type, and caregiver's capacity for supervision were associated with increased residential placement. The findings highlight the importance of early identification and treatment of behavior and functioning problems following a crisis episode among children and youth in state custody to reduce the need for subsequent residential placement. Having an inpatient psychiatric episode following a crisis episode places children at greater risk for residential placement, suggesting that the hospital is an important point for diversion programs. Children and youth in psychiatric crisis may also benefit from efforts to include their families in the treatment process.

Knowledge creation through total clinical outcomes management: a practice-based evidence solution to address some of the challenges of knowledge translation.

INTRODUCTION: The challenges of knowledge translation in behavioural health care are unique to this field for a variety of reasons including the fact that effective treatment is invariably embedded in a strong relationship between practitioners and the people they serve. METHODS: Practitioners' knowledge gained from experience and intuition become an even more important consideration in the knowledge translation process since clinicians are, in fact, a component of most treatments. Communication of findings from science must be conceptualized with sensitivity to this reality. RESULTS: Considering knowledge translation as a communication process suggests the application of contemporary theories of communication which emphasize the creation of shared meaning over the transmission of knowledge from one person to the next. CONCLUSION: In this context outcomes management approaches to create a learning environment within clinical practices that facilitate the goals of knowledge transfer while respecting that the scientific enterprise is neither the sole nor primary repository of knowledge.

Evaluating psychiatric hospital admission decisions for children in foster care: an optimal classification tree analysis.

This study explored clinical and nonclinical predictors of inpatient hospital admission decisions across a sample of children in foster care over 4 years (N = 13,245). Forty-eight percent of participants were female and the mean age was 13.4 (SD = 3.5 years). Optimal data analysis (Yarnold & Soltysik, 2005) was used to construct a nonlinear classification tree model for predicting admission decisions. As expected, clinical variables such as suicidality, psychoticism, and dangerousness predicted psychiatric admissions; however, several variables that are not direct indications of acute psychiatric distress, such as the presence of family problems and the location of the hospital screening, impacted decision making in a subsample of cases. Further analyses indicated that the model developed in Year 1 reliably and consistently predicted admission decisions (with 64%-68% overall accuracy) across the next 3 years. Policy, research, and clinical implications are discussed.

The complexity of communication in an environment with multiple disciplines and professionals: communimetrics and decision support.

Accurate and efficient communication among all the parties is an important component of providing efficient and effective medical care to patients who have complex needs. The evolution of clinimetric measurement approaches designed to be congruent with the clinical process into communimetric tools designed to communicate the clinical process to wider audiences allows the use of technology to support improved care. Computerized medicine offers many opportunities for speeding up the communication of data and thereby improving the efficiency and effectiveness of medical care. The use of communimetric tools within this information environment represents an important opportunity to bridge the quality chasm.

Operationalizing integrated care on a clinical level: the INTERMED project.

During the last 10 years the INTERMED method has been developed as a generic method for the assessment of bio-psychosocial health risks and health needs and for planning of integrated treatment. The INTERMED has been conceptualized to counteract divisions and fragmentation of medical care. Designed to enhance the communication between patients and the health providers as well as between different professions and disciplines, the INTERMED is a visualized, action-oriented decision-support tool. This article presents various aspects of the INTERMED, such as its relevance, description, scoring, the related patient interview and treatment planning, scientific evaluation, implementation, and support for the method.

Expanded mental health benefits and outpatient depression treatment intensity.

BACKGROUND: The justification for higher cost-sharing for behavioral health treatment is its greater price sensitivity relative to general healthcare treatment. Despite this, recent policy efforts have focused on improving access to behavioral health treatment. OBJECTIVES: We measured the effects on outpatient treatment of depression of a change in mental health benefits for employees of a large U.S.-based corporation. RESEARCH DESIGN: The benefit change involved 3 major elements: reduced copayments for mental health treatment, the implementation of a selective contracting network, and an effort to destigmatize mental illness. Claims data and a difference-in-differences methodology were used to examine how the benefit change affected outpatient treatment of depression. SUBJECTS: Subjects consisted of 214,517 employee-years of data for individuals who were continuously enrolled for at least 1 full year at the intervention company and 96,365 employee-years in the control group. MEASURES: We measured initiation into treatment of depression and the number of outpatient therapy visits. RESULTS: The benefit change was associated with a 26% increase in the probability of initiating depression treatment. Conditional on initiating treatment, patients in the intervention company received 1.2 additional (P < 0.001) outpatient mental health treatment visits relative to the control group. CONCLUSIONS: Our results suggest that the overall effect of the company's benefit change was to significantly increase the number of outpatient visits per episode of treatment conditional on treatment initiation.

The hospital as predictor of children's and adolescents' length of stay.

OBJECTIVE: To predict psychiatric hospital length of stay (LOS) for a sample of Illinois Department of Children and Family Services wards across 4 fiscal years. METHOD: A prospective design was implemented using the Children's Severity of Psychiatric Illness scale, a reliable and valid measure of psychiatric severity, risk factors, youth strengths, and contextual/environmental factors. Data were collected for 1,930 hospital episodes across 44 hospitals from fiscal year 1998 through fiscal year 2001. Youths were screened for admission appropriateness by the Illinois Screening, Assessment, and Supportive Services (SASS) program. The Children's Severity of Psychiatric Illness was completed by SASS workers upon conclusion of their crisis interviews. In addition to completing the Children's Severity of Psychiatric Illness, SASS workers reported on demographic information and LOS. RESULTS: The sample of 1,930 youths was randomly split to form development (n = 983) and validation (n = 947) samples. LOS was predicted using ordinary least squares regression. Thirty percent of the variance (F(19,666) = 16.6, p < .0001) in LOS was predicted for the development sample and 22% (F(14,657) = 14.6, p < .0001) was predicted for the confirmation sample. Hospital was the largest and most consistent predictor of LOS for both samples after controlling for clinical variables. Two hospitals accounted for approximately 10% of the variance in both samples (development beta = .273, p < .01 and beta = -.169, p < .01). Two SASS agencies also consistently predicted LOS (development beta = -.134, p < .05 and beta = .102, p < .05). No consistent changes in predictors of LOS occurred over time (FY98-FY01). CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest that nonclinical variables are the primary predictors of LOS in the Illinois system of care. In addition, these variables are consistent predictors over time. Quality assurance efforts might seek to further understand potential practice pattern variations across hospitals and SASS agencies.