Research and Projects: AHRQ THQIT and SRD Portfolio

Tennessee

Improving Quality Care for Children with Special Needs

Description:  Develops a database that includes diagnoses, health records, and educational information on Children with Special Health Care Needs with emphasis on children with genetic conditions and developmental disabilities; makes this information available to physicians via a secure Web-based system.

Abstract:  DESCRIPTION (provided by the applicant): The proposed project plans to develop a database to include diagnosis, health records, and educational information on children with special healthcare needs (CSHCN), especially those with genetic conditions and developmental disabilities. A major task for this project will be to establish partnerships between the providers of services and data generators for CSHCN, with database holders in the Departments of Health, Education, Mental Retardation, and TennCare. The proposed project Goals are: I. To develop the health information technology (HIT) infrastructure needed to promote and improve the safety and quality of healthcare for CSHCN. II. To promote cooperative agreements among providers of healthcare for CSHCN and linkage into a single data warehouse that will be accessible by each provider. III. To make available to healthcare providers access to an integrated electronic health record of CSHCN (with parental permission) through a secure web-based system. The specific aims for these goals are: I.1 To include other CSHCN in the Tennessee Child Health Profile (TN CHP), a HIT system for infants identified by state newborn screening (NBS) and newborn hearing screening (NHS). I.2 To improve coordination of services, timelines of followup and patient tracking to avoid loss of cases and to reduce delays in delivering appropriate treatments. I.3 To reduce misinformation and give easy access to healthcare specialists of the primary diagnosis for CSHCN. II.1 To incorporate and integrate into a common data warehouse the databases from various state departments. II.2 To integrate systems of early identification with early intervention services. II.3 To increase communication between all aspects of the healthcare and educational systems to improve the quality of life for CSHCN. III.1. To offer healthcare providers all relevant health information on a child (with parental permission) from a single secure web source (TN-CHP). III.2 To give parents access to their child's records and an electronic mechanism to communicate their concerns, progress, and other relevant information.

Year 1 Funding:  $200,000

Estimated Total Funding:  $200,000

Principal Investigator:  Carmen Lozzio

Applicant Institution:  University of Tennessee Health Sciences Center

City/Town:  Memphis, Tennessee

State:  Tennessee

Grant Number:  P20 HS15426

Category:  Planning Grants (THQIT)

Thesaurus Terms:  bioinformatics, child with disability, data management, health care facility information system, health care quality, health care service planning, health science research support, medical record, technology /technique development, Internet, communication disorder diagnosis, computer network, health disparity, newborn human (0-6 weeks), rural area, clinical research, health services research tag, human data

Project Start Date:  Sep 30, 2004

Project End Date:  Sep 29, 2005