Physician Resources and Opportunities

National Expert Presentations Past and Present

The Institute has hosted a number of conferences featuring nationally recognized speakers and panels. To view summaries of these presentations and links to related sites, visit: Past Conferences

Screening Tools and Referral Traing (START) for Medical Practitioners

The START project, funded by CareOregon, creates and implements an Oregon version of the START program, originally developed by the Tennessee Academy of Pediatrics. START is an educational program designed to help pediatric care providers - including pediatricians, family practice physicians, nurse practitioners and others learn skills and strategies to implement routine developmental screening using standardized screening tools as part of their health care procedures. It was also adapted with permission from the Illinois Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics model designed to educate physicians, allied health care providers and office staff about developmental and behavioral screening tools, referral procedures and office workflow, and coding for reimbursement for screening that can easily be incorporated into the practice routine.

Several START project trainings are occurring during the summer and fall of 2008 in various locations throughout the Portland metro area. Specific dates, locations and registration information can be found on the Institute's home page.

Docs For Tots

Docs for Tots s a nonpartisan, advocacy organization that encourages doctors to fulfill their important role as active advocates for infants, toddlers, and preschoolers on the national, state and local level. They are committed to making it as simple as possible for doctors to become involved in advocacy or to increase their advocacy activity.

The Docs for Tots Advocacy Toolkit was designed to facilitate doctor's entrance into the advocacy arena. The Toolkit provides:

• advice on advocating for children
• guidance for framing effective messages on early childhood issues
• tips for working with the media
• suggestions for contacting legislators
• additional resources and related links.

Docs For Tots is flourishing in Washington State. At this website you can see that DFT is a growing network of doctors who advocate for young children. In addition to supporting the efforts of the national office, the Early Learning Advocacy Project allows DFT WA to collaborate with public and private partners to increase doctors' awareness about and involvement in efforts to enhance early learning opportunities for children and families in Washington State.

Community and Behavioral Pediatric Learning Collaboratives

All primary care pediatricians are being called upon to expand their role to identify children and families at risk for mental health and behavioral disturbances, to provide a Developmental Home for children with special needs, and to build collaborations with community services.  Over the next 12 months, this project of the Northwest Early Childhood Institute (NWECI) will provide regional community pediatric Lunch and Learn collaboratives that will discuss these issues, provide case study opportunities, and will connect pediatric practices to the early childhood care and education community.

Dr. David Willis, Director of the NWECI, is offering community pediatricians an opportunity to participate in quarterly “lunch and learn” sessions onsite at their offices bringing relevant didactic presentations with current literature review, specific case discussions and introductions to appropriate early childhood community resource representatives.

These sessions will be made available to a select number of offices in the tri-county area under the sponsorship of  Northwest Early Childhood Institute, Oregon Commission on Children and Families, and the Oregon Pediatric Society.

Program Goals:

• Establish early childhood learning collaboratives to strengthen the pediatrician's knowledge of psychosocial health promotion, prevention, and treatment.
• To expand the pediatrician's knowledge of office-based management of behavioral, developmental and psychosocial disturbances.
• Broaden the Community Pediatrician's role in consultation and collaboration with the early care and education community.

Meeting Format:

The meetings will be a mix of didactic and case study so that we can maximize the short time we will have together. The topics will be chosen by each practice, based upon their most pressing issues, and NWECI will tailor the sessions around those topics. Meetings will be held for 1.5 hours over the lunch hour, every other month so that each practice will get 3 sessions completed by the end of June 2007.

Topics:

• Preschool ADHD
• Early Identification of Autism Spectrum Disorders
• Developmental and Psychosocial Screening in primary care
• Early Childhood Psychopharmacology
• Early Childhood Relational monitoring - the "Behavioral Health Screen"

Contacts:

David W. Willis, M.D., dwwillis@nweci.org; 503-672-7857
Anne Stone, Deputy Director NWECI, annes@nweci.org; 503-802-5252

Oregon Pediatric Society

Oregon Pediatric Society promotes optimal physical, mental and social health for all infants, children, and adolescents of Oregon. They promote high quality health care for Oregon s children and adolescents. Advocate for children, adolescents and families. Provide educational leadership. Support the pediatrician as the best provider of quality health care for children and adolescents. David W. Willis, M.D. is the incoming president of OPS. Sarojini S. Budden, M.D is on the Board of Directors of NWECI

American Academy of Pediatrics: Community Pediatrics Section

This national association of Pediatric physicians are committed to the attainment of optimal physical, mental, and social health and well-being for all infants, children, adolescents, and young adults. The site provides general information related to child health and gives more specific guidelines concerning pediatric issues. You ll find information regarding the Academy s many programs and activities, their policy statements and practice guidelines, their publications and other child health resources, and much more.

Link to the Community Pediatrics Section.

Child and Adolescent Health Measurement Initiative (CAHMI)

The mission of the Child and Adolescent Health Measurement Initiative is to ensure that children, youth and families are at the center of quality measurement and improvement efforts in order to advance a high quality consumer-centered health care system. For descriptions of all of CAHMI's programs go to: CAHMI