ABCD Activities

Gauging Success: Measurement and Evaluation

 
The ABCD collaborative experience confirms the importance of being able to show results for improving, sustaining, and spreading innovation and provides valuable information for others seeking to use data to support policy and practice improvements that promote children's healthy devleopment. Three immediate suggestions for those initiating such work are:

  • Ensure that plans for measurement are in place at the start,
  • Identify an individual who is responsible for managing all measurement activity, and
  • Pilot measurement approaches early in the effort.

 Specific examples of strategies used by the ABCD states to gauge success include:

  • Including developmental screening and surveillance in your state quality strategy as well as in routine assessment and audit of state systems
  • Enhancing the reporting of Early and Periodic Screening, Diagnostic, and Treatment (EPSDT)
  • Using claims and enrollment data effectively
  • Using provider and/or family surveys and focus group as well as medical chart review data effectively
  • Partnering with other state agencies to collect robust, child-centered data

This section highlights resources for measuring and evaluating the important work of improving the quality of child development services.

Title Description Date publishedsort icon Resource State
Measurement to Support Effective Identification of Children at Risk for Developmental Delay

This State Health Policy Briefing is the third in a series examining the efforts of 19 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico to improve identification of children with or at risk for developmental delay. For 15 months, ending in July 2008, these states and territories worked together, with the support of NASHP and the Commonwealth Fund, to make policy and practice changes that supported primary care providers’ use of a validated developmental screening tool as part of well child care.

 April 2009 NASHP-Commonwealth
CAHMI Pediatric Preventive and Developmental Health Care Survey (CAHMI, 2007) This survey is part of the Child and Adolescent Health Measurement Initiative (CAHMI)  project focused on providing useful information about the preventive and developmental health care delivered to young children (0-3 years old) in the Pediatrics Department at Kaiser Permanente Northwest (KPNW). This survey is designed to gather information on providers' practices, perceptions of, and barriers to preventive and developmental health care for young children. www.cahmi.org/ January 2009 Other
Medicaid and SCHIP Quality Practices: Tools, Tips, and Protocols The Centers for Medicare and Medicare Services (CMS) developed a useful kit of quality practices for use in Medicaid and CHIP programs. Quality Tools, Tips and Protocols. A number of resources are available on this website to assist states in enhancing their external quality review activities. Specific tips related to medical chart (or record) reviews are provided. General information on Medicaid and CHIP Quality Practices is available: www.cms.hhs.gov/MedicaidCHIPQualPrac/   January 2009 Other
“Creciendo Juntos” Chart Review Process Puerto Rico ABCD Screening Academy “Creciendo Juntos” Project (2008). Description of preferred chart review process of children eligible for the ABCD Screening project. December 2008 State-specific Puerto Rico
Developmental Screening Initiative New Mexico Chart Audit Tool (and Evaluation Tool) New Mexico ABCD Project. (2008). Chart audit tool used in New Mexico as a source for measurement data. Chart review is performed at baseline and one-month visits. December 2008 State-specific New Mexico
Preliminary Ohio Measurement Plan Ohio ABCD Project. (2008). Ohio developed a control chart using Medicaid claims data that assesses the number of screening claims (96110 and 96111) for children at one and two years of age. The state plans on tracking data quarterly and annotating the chart to assess how changes have impacted screening and its documentation. Ohio is also discussing chart review to measure and analyze data at the individual practice level and compare this with claims data, as a way to confirm the validity of these methods. December 2008 State-specific Ohio
Virginia Medicaid Paid Claims for Extended Developmental Testing under 96111 code Virginia ABCD Project. (2008). Charts from Virginia Medicaid providing visual display of 1) claims paid under 96111 code for children birth through 5 years of age by month of service,  January 2005 through December 2007, and 2) children ages 0-5 with a Medicaid paid claim for developmental testing in calendar years 2005, 2006, and 2007  (preliminary). December 2008 State-specific Virginia
Findings from Virginia's 2007 Primary Care Provider Developmental Screening Survey Virginia ABCD Project. (2008). Summary of Findings of 2007 Provider Survey. This report summarizes results of 30 completed and returned surveys of pediatric providers that were distributed at the fall 2007 Virginia Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) meeting in Williamsburg, Virginia. This survey obtained a rough assessment of the use of developmental screening practices in the community.   December 2008 State-specific Virginia
Medicaid Paid Claims for Extended Developmental Testing under 96110 code Virginia ABCD Project (2008) Two charts from Virginia Medicaid 1) providing visual display of claims paid under 96110 code for children birth through 5 years of age by month of service January 2005 through December 2007, and 2) ages of children with a Medicaid paid claim birth through 5 years of age in calendar years 2005, 2006, and 2007. (preliminary). December 2008 State-specific Virginia
New Jersey's ABCD Screening Academy Grant Baseline Chart Review New Jersey ABCD Screening Academy Project (2008). Data from New Jersey's sample chart review, using 5 charts each from 9 month, 18 month, and 30 month well-child visits. December 2008 State-specific New Jersey