Developmental Delay Referrals Improve With QI Plan [Medscape]

Children with developmental delays stand a better chance of getting the early-intervention services they need if clinicians take the time to document screening efforts and follow-up with a simple telephone call, investigators say.

When a large children's hospital in Denver, Colorado, ramped up its screening, referral, and follow-up efforts and implemented quality-control measures to verify the outcomes, the number of children referred to community resources more than doubled, and the number referred to early intervention programs tripled.

"Even in a clinic with high rates of developmental screening, we found that screening, identification, referral, and the use of a developmental screening template in the [electronic medical record] did not adequately facilitate access to [early intervention] services for children at risk for developmental delays," Ayelet Talmi, PhD, from the Department of Psychiatry and the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Colorado School of Medicine in Aurora, and colleagues write in an article published online September 1 in Pediatrics.