Pediatric Practice Assistant: A Web and Mobile Platform to Measure Mental Health Problems in Pediatric Practice

Medical Decision Logic, Inc., Baltimore MD

Investigators

Abstract

Project Summary/Abstract The purpose of this SBIR Phase I project ?Pediatric Practice Assistant: A Web and Mobile Platform to Measure Mental Health Problems in Pediatric Practice? is to establish new features that improve the screening and individualized follow-up assessment of young children, using parent report, and assist in strengthening referral processes and outcomes using managed and interactive text messaging. We will also add new library capabilities for unlimited public and proprietary screening tools, including support for business agreements with publishers for their copyrighted material. In the US, 15-20% of children have mental, behavioral, or developmental problems and disorders, but clinical identification and treatment are still lagging. More than 90% of children visit a pediatrician annually, but pediatric providers have not overcome barriers to implementing routine behavioral health screening and treatment. These barriers include time constraints, lack of training in mental health, lack of screening and diagnostic tools, lack of referral resources, and lack of knowledge about reimbursement opportunities. Also, given the range of disorders and patient ages, pediatricians need help selecting from a large library of tools, as well as managing individual patient results and translating this information into the best possible treatment plans for their patients. Parents also need guidance when completing these assessments for their children. Many parents do not respond when they are asked to complete paper or web-based screens at home prior to office visits. Additionally, paper screens often require staff to score and enter data into an EHR, generating more work for the staff and increasing the margin of error. Consequently, adding screening to the office clinical process without addressing other barriers to care, such as referral processes, may lead to staff resistance (e.g., why screen if we have no place to send them?!?). To overcome these barriers for both parents and pediatric providers, we will implement these new functions on an existing scalable HIPAA-compliant platform, BH-Works. BH-Works includes a proprietary screening tool that measures 14 domains of functioning in youth and adults using self-report, and instantly generates a scored report for the clinician. BH-Works has screened more than 50,000 youth and adults across 14 states and the tool is used in diverse settings for care management, referral and care coordination, best practice workflows, and systems integration support. The web-based platform also aggregates screening and EHR data, creating an information hub which will facilitate academic and policy contributions in behavioral health.