Pediatric Practice Redesign with Group Well Child Care Visits: A Multi-Site Study.

OBJECTIVES: Multiple barriers exist to delivering efficient, effective well child care, especially in low-income, immigrant communities. Practice redesign strategies, including group well child care, have shown promise in improving care delivery and healthcare outcomes. To assess the feasibility of a group well child care program at multiple urban, academic practices caring for underserved, mostly immigrant children, and to evaluate health outcomes and process measures compared to traditional care. METHODS: Prospective, intervention control study with participants recruited to group well child care visits or traditional visits during the first year of life. A culturally sensitive curriculum was designed based on American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommendations. Process and health outcomes were analyzed via patient surveys and medical record information. RESULTS: One hundred and one families enrolled in group care and 74 in traditional care. Group care participants had higher rates of all recommended postpartum depression screening and domestic violence screening (65% vs 37%, 38% vs 17% respectively), higher anticipatory guidance retention (67% vs 37%) and higher patient satisfaction with their provider. The group care redesign did not increase length of time spent in clinic. CONCLUSIONS FOR PRACTICE: Group well child care is a feasible method for practice redesign, which allows for increased psychosocial screening and anticipatory guidance delivery and retention compared to traditional visits, for low income, predominantly immigrant families. Parental satisfaction with group care is higher and these visits provide greater face-to-face time with the provider, without increasing time spent in the practice.

Kappa opioid receptor binding in major depression: A pilot study.

Endogenous kappa opioids mediate pathological responses to stress in animal models. However, the relationship of the kappa opioid receptor (KOR) to life stress and to psychopathology in humans is not well described. This pilot study sought, for the first time, to quantify KOR in major depressive disorder (MDD) in vivo in humans using positron emission tomography (PET). KOR binding was quantified in vivo by PET imaging with the [11 C]GR103545 radiotracer in 13 healthy volunteers and 10 participants with current MDD. We examined the relationship between regional [11 C]GR103545 total volume of distribution (VT ) and diagnosis, childhood trauma, recent life stress, and, in a subsample, salivary cortisol levels during a modified Trier Social Stress Test (mTSST), amygdala, hippocampus, ventral striatum and raphe nuclei. Whole-brain voxel-wise analyses were also performed. [11 C]GR103545 VT did not differ significantly between MDD participants and healthy volunteers in the four a priori ROIs (p = 0.50). [11 C]GR103545 VT was unrelated to reported childhood adversity (p = 0.17) or recent life stress (p = 0.56). A trend-level inverse correlation was observed between [11 C]GR103545 VT and cortisol area-under-the curve with respect to ground during the mTSST (p = 0.081). No whole-brain voxel-wise contrasts were significant. Regional [11 C]GR103545 VT , a measure of in vivo KOR binding, does not differentiate MDD from healthy volunteers in this pilot sample. Future studies may examine KOR binding in subgroups of depressed individuals at increased risk for KOR abnormalities, including co-occurring mood and substance use disorders, as well as depression with psychotic features.