TY - JOUR
T1 - Improving adolescent access and services in a large primary care network
T2 - Report of a 10 year project
AU - Alderman, Elizabeth M.
AU - Freeman, Kim L.
AU - Lobach, Katherine S.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston 2019.
PY - 2019
Y1 - 2019
N2 - This report describes a decade long initiative to bring a unified approach and improved quality to the process and content of adolescent health care in a large and complex urban primary care network within an academic health system. The moving force was a voluntary multidisciplinary group who comprised the Montefiore Adolescent Primary Care Initiative, known as MAPCI, led by a physician subspecialist in Adolescent Medicine. A series of needs assessments formed the basis for a multipronged effort to create policies and procedures, educational activities and materials, changes in record-keeping and billing practices, and modification of staff attitudes and behavior that would enhance access and ensure confidentiality of services for the adolescent age group. The commitment of medical center leadership contributed to overall progress which was accelerated in the second half of the decade by the addition of a full-time staff member, with the title Adolescent Program Manager. Progress in various arenas was assessed with a series of planned studies, whose positive results provided encouragement for continuing efforts. The example of this initiative and its accomplishments should provide useful and replicable methods that could be adapted for improvement of adolescent health services in some of the other large primary care networks that are an ever-expanding presence in the current health care environment.
AB - This report describes a decade long initiative to bring a unified approach and improved quality to the process and content of adolescent health care in a large and complex urban primary care network within an academic health system. The moving force was a voluntary multidisciplinary group who comprised the Montefiore Adolescent Primary Care Initiative, known as MAPCI, led by a physician subspecialist in Adolescent Medicine. A series of needs assessments formed the basis for a multipronged effort to create policies and procedures, educational activities and materials, changes in record-keeping and billing practices, and modification of staff attitudes and behavior that would enhance access and ensure confidentiality of services for the adolescent age group. The commitment of medical center leadership contributed to overall progress which was accelerated in the second half of the decade by the addition of a full-time staff member, with the title Adolescent Program Manager. Progress in various arenas was assessed with a series of planned studies, whose positive results provided encouragement for continuing efforts. The example of this initiative and its accomplishments should provide useful and replicable methods that could be adapted for improvement of adolescent health services in some of the other large primary care networks that are an ever-expanding presence in the current health care environment.
KW - access to care
KW - adolescent primary care
KW - health disparities
KW - standardization of adolescent care
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U2 - 10.1515/ijamh-2016-0163
DO - 10.1515/ijamh-2016-0163
M3 - Article
C2 - 28598801
AN - SCOPUS:85056719213
SN - 0334-0139
VL - 31
JO - International Journal of Adolescent Medicine and Health
JF - International Journal of Adolescent Medicine and Health
IS - 2
M1 - 0163
ER -