Improving Outcomes for Children with Chronic Diseases
As medical science continues to make strides against severe childhood diseases, children and adolescents with chronic conditions are becoming an increasingly important focus of pediatric care in the United States.
At Cincinnati Children’s, Maria Britto, MD, MPH, is taking an innovative approach to understanding and improving the care delivery methods of this rapidly expanding segment of the patient population.
A Space for Focus
Using methods adopted by other industries to understand teenagers’ needs could improve their compliance with health care requirements.
Dr. Britto, of the Division of Adolescent Medicine, and other researchers at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center recognized that, in order to truly improve outcomes for chronic disease patients, there needed to be a center focused solely on improving chronic disease care delivery.
They had been focusing for several years on the wide range of issues related to chronic disease care from quality of life measures to the health care preferences and priorities of adolescents with chronic disease.
“We were making improvements in chronic disease care up to a certain level, but we needed to take the next step,” explains Dr. Britto.
That next step took shape in 2006, when Dr. Britto helped establish and became director of the Center for Innovation in Chronic Disease Care at Cincinnati Children’s. The center was created to improve the outcomes for children and adolescents with chronic illnesses by accelerating the development of effective care delivery methods.
“We were able to take some of the most difficult problems associated with chronic disease, pull together a group and develop this innovation lab,” says Dr. Britto. The laboratory features a cross section of health care professionals from the hospital who research, test and refine new care delivery models.
Teenagers and Asthma: the Test Case
The methodologies under development at the center are being focused initially on teenage asthma patients. “Asthma is the most common chronic disease of childhood, and adolescents are the most difficult patient group to manage successfully,” explains Dr. Britto. “If this approach works with asthma, it should work for other patient groups.”
Learning from Other Industries
Corporations have used consumer science for years to entice people to buy a certain brand of peanut butter, computer or automobile. Dr. Britto’s multidisciplinary team is working to adapt some of these same consumermodeling and segmentation techniques to better understand the motivational needs and wants of teenage asthma patients. Dr. Britto hopes these innovations can help lead to partnerships across industries.
“We are taking consumer-focused observation and other research and development methods rarely applied before in health care,” says Dr. Britto. “If we can use those methods to focus on what kids and their families say is most important to them, we can help teens be more successful in managing their health.
“Our goal is to adequately prepare adolescents and young adults with chronic conditions to transition to adult-oriented care, but currently there are few if any empirically tested and effective models. We are working to close that gap.”
