CA ACEs Aware Initiative webinar provides roadmap for ACEs screening

What is the economic toll of  ACEs in the State of California? $112.5 billion, said California Surgeon General Dr. Nadine Burke Harris to attendees of a webinar on February 26. That cost, she said, was one clear reason that she and other early adopters of screening for Adverse Childhood Experiences are urging their fellow health care providers in California to join the ACEs Aware Initiative that launched at the beginning of the year.  

In January, the State of California put screening residents for adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) front and center: It now encourages health care providers to screen the 13 million children and adults in the state’s MediCal program for ACEs in exchange for a $29 per patient incentive payment.

Burke Harris’s comment was part of the second webinar in a series to familiarize health care providers in the state with the new program, known as the ACEs Aware Initiative, Burke Harris spoke in addition to a panel of clinicians including:  Dr. Anna Lee Amarnath, medical program consultant, chief Medi-Cal Managed Care Quality & Oversight, Department of Health Care Services, Dr. Melissa Merrick, president & CEO of Prevent Child Abuse America and Dr. Brigid McCaw, clinical adviser for ACEs Aware.

Among the questions answered in the ACEs Aware webinar were:

• What is the evidence that ties ACEs to poor health outcomes?
• How can ACEs screening and interventions help prevent adversity before it occurs?
• How can clinicians get training and get certified to begin receiving incentive payments for screening for ACEs?
• What is the evidence that links ACEs to health outcomes in adulthood?
• What are guidelines for determining the need for interventions among patients who have been screened for ACEs?
• What tools, materials, resources are available on the ACEs Aware website?
• What plans are in the works to provide additional training for clinicians and their health care staff?
  
  

A video recording of the webinar and slides from it  will be posted here as soon as they are available. Please also check the ACEs Aware website.