Throughout the nation, Michigan, and particularly in Detroit, Medicaid-enrolled children consistently have poorer health outcomes than children with private insurance. Families and service providers encounter a frustrating, fragmented system of multiple programs and barriers that impede access to health and mental health services for children. Quality, coordinated, preventative care through a medical home has shown to improve health outcomes and lower healthcare costs by reducing emergency room usage and unnecessary hospitalizations. The Wayne Children’s Healthcare Access Program (WCHAP) is part of this national movement to improve the quality of healthcare by assuring that all children have a family centered medical home.
The Children’s Healthcare Access Program (CHAP) is a children’s medical home implementation model that targets Medicaid-enrolled children to advance healthcare quality and coordinate services among health providers, health plans and multiple community partners. WCHAP is an independent, physician- led, pilot program that was recently awarded a three-year $1.5 million grant from The W.K. Kellogg Foundation (WKKF) in Battle Creek, Mich. With initial funding from the Kresge Foundation of Troy, Mich., the WCHAP pilot began in February 2011 as a public–private collaborative and is currently comprised of seven pediatric practices – including Michigan’s largest hospital for children and the largest Federally Qualified Health Clinic – as well as three Medicaid health plans, and multiple local and state community partners.
“We are deeply appreciative of the Kellogg Foundation’s investment in our vision and work to strengthen partnerships between families, health, mental health education and social services in order to improve the health and well-being of our children.” said Jametta Lilly, CEO of WCHAP. “WCHAP uniquely works as a change agent by empowering families, supporting quality improvement and innovation with pediatric practices and advancing systems change with multiple partners to help resolve fragmentation and inefficiencies.”
Medical home models, like CHAP, are an approach that transforms primary care practices to be more accessible, continuous, comprehensive, family-centered, coordinated, compassionate, and culturally effective. WCHAP is the second CHAP model being implemented in the state. WCHAP builds on the successes of the CHAP in Kent County, Mich., which has demonstrated significant reductions in emergency room use and unnecessary hospitalizations while reducing healthcare costs. Kent and Wayne CHAP are leaders in the Michigan CHAP (MI-CHAP) collaborative, which includes eight additional communities interested in dramatically improving the health of vulnerable children throughout Michigan.
With WKKF support, WCHAP will expand its services to an additional 4,000 Detroit children from birth through age 21 and will engage additional pediatric practices to impact some 40,000 children. The WKKF investment will also strengthen WCHAP’s efforts in its specialty areas, several which address top health disparities among children in Detroit, including:
- Expanding its asthma case management team;
- Implementing Fit Kids 360, an evidence-based obesity reduction model;
- Strengthening coordination and transitions between maternal and child health providers to improve
birth and infant health outcomes; - Increasing coordination and integration between physical and behavioral/mental health; and
- Bolstering the Innovation and Incentives Program to assist pediatric practices in meeting medical
home standards.
“The Kellogg Foundation believes that every child in Detroit should receive high quality health care,” said Linda Jo Doctor, program officer for WKKF. “The advancement of family centered medical homes is a key strategy to achieve this because we know that medical homes help reduce health inequities and promote child and family well-being.”
Please contact WCHAP to hear family and pediatric voices engaged in advancing family centered medical home to improve child health and wellness in Detroit and Wayne County.
About the Wayne Children’s Healthcare Access Program (WCHAP)WCHAP is an independent, physician led, public-private community health collaborative. The Children’s Healthcare Access Program, CHAP, is a proven medical home implementation model built on the successes of Kent CHAP in Grand Rapids, Mich; and is specifically tailored to improve health outcomes for vulnerable children and families enrolled in Medicaid. CHAP helps transform pediatric primary care practices to become more accessible, continuous, comprehensive, family centered,
coordinated, compassionate, and culturally effective. WCHAP works to improve quality, access and child health outcomes; strengthen provider, family and community partnerships; and reduce costs and advance systems change. For more information, visit www.wchap.org and the America Academy of Pediatrics at www.aap.org.
About the W.K. Kellogg Foundation
The W.K. Kellogg Foundation (WKKF), founded in 1930 as an independent, private foundation by breakfast cereal pioneer, Will Keith Kellogg, is among the largest philanthropic foundations in the United States. Guided by the belief that all children should have an equal opportunity to thrive, WKKF works with communities to create conditions for vulnerable children so they can realize their full potential in school, work and life.
The Kellogg Foundation is based in Battle Creek, Mich., and works throughout the United States and internationally, as well as with sovereign tribes. Special emphasis is paid to priority places where there are high concentrations of poverty and where children face significant barriers to success. WKKF priority places in the U.S. are in Michigan, Mississippi, New Mexico and New Orleans; and internationally, are in Mexico and Haiti. For more information, visit www.wkkf.org.