Quality Improvement, Digital tools, and a Bit of Creativity: Necessary Ingredients for Improving Autism Screening Processes

Leader(s)

• 

  Elizabeth Barnhardt, DO, MA(Ed)

  Assistant Professor of Pediatrics
  Nationwide Children's Hospital
  Columbus, Ohio, United States

Co-Leader(s)

• 

  Courtney Brown, MD, MSc (she/her/hers)

  Assistant Professor of Clinical Pediatrics
  Nationwide Children's Hospital
  Columbus, Ohio, United States
• 

  Shravani Vundavalli, MD

  Clinical Assistant Professor
  Nationwide Children's Hospital/The Ohio State University, United States
• AN

  Amy Newmeyer, MD

  Division Chief, Developmental Behavioral Pediatrics
  Nationwide Children's Hospital
  Powell, Ohio, United States

Workshop

Description: Although rates of screening for autism are increasing nationally, significant challenges exist, including barriers at the individual provider level and systemically which might contribute to a delay in receipt of services and timely diagnostic evaluation. For families from diverse ethnic, racial, and cultural backgrounds, these challenges appear to be more significant, resulting in substantial health disparities in the autism screening process and in access to services. In order to improve autism screening processes and address long wait times to diagnostic evaluation, creativity and collaboration are necessary. This workshop will review innovative strategies used to improve rates of high-quality screening for autism and lower the age of diagnosis within our system, with a focus on describing collaborative efforts between Primary Care Pediatricians and Developmental Behavioral Pediatricians. We will also review how, through educational initiatives and tools embedded in the electronic medical record, we were able to achieve such success. Through participation in this workshop, participants will review their own institutional challenges and identify opportunities for creativity and partnership within their own institution. Participants will also develop an understanding of how quality improvement methodology can be adapted for projects which are easily influenced by external, family-level factors and systemic barriers and examine challenges related to autism screening in the primary care setting through a health equity lens by creating a "process map", identifying barriers to care which might be amenable to Quality Improvement-related interventions.