Pediatric Academic Societies

From PAS:

"The Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) Meeting brings together thousands of pediatricians and other health care providers united by a common mission: improve the health and well-being of children worldwide. This international gathering includes researchers, academics, as well as clinical care providers and community practitioners. Presentations cover issues of interest to generalists as well as topics critical to a wide array of specialty and sub-specialty areas.

We are excited to share with you the first-ever strategic plan for the Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) Meeting!
This plan, recently adopted by the PAS Meeting Executive Committee, builds upon the historic success of the PAS Meeting and codifies our aspirational vision: The PAS Meeting will be the premier North American scholarly child health meeting."

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Highlighted Sessions:

Saturday, May 5

Children's Hospital Association Business Meeting on Accountable Care and Population Health
1pm – 5pm | Fairmont Ballroom
The Children’s Hospital Association (CHA) has been convening its members to share strategies as they evolve the systems, relationships and capabilities to assume increasing accountability for populations of children. This session will convene attendees interested in the emerging fields of accountable care, care management, and population health. It will feature children’s hospital experience in emerging trends and exciting accountable health solutions across markets and institutions that may be generalizable to other providers who are attending the PAS conference.

Neighborhood Partnerships to Improve the Health of Communities
2:45pm – 4:45pm | Convention Center 701A
The presentation will feature our NHP program and models of in-neighborhood care delivery, key partnerships and patient population outcomes. It will help health systems and providers understand how to develop a patient-centered medical neighborhood approach to improving the health of populations using a data-driven hot spotting model.

Greenville Health System (GHS) strives to create a new healthcare delivery platform that incorporates all the tools necessary to improve the health of communities. We realize that none of these initiatives will be the single solution, and GHS believes in implementing a three-tiered approach to population health that encompasses a clinically integrated network, a support-service data-driven and best practice knowledge institute, and an IT platform to support all efforts. Through the development of this integrated delivery platform, we can build a new model of care that will foster healthy patients and communities while accomplishing the Triple Aim. (See white paper included below for additional details.)

Through GHS’s Neighborhood Health Partners (NHP) program, we identify at-risk neighborhoods and take resources into these areas where our patients reside. Medical neighborhood resources include – a Social Worker/Paramedic Care Team, Mobile Health Clinic, Community Health Workers, Community Paramedics and the GHS/Clemson University Cooperative Extension Pilot that has embedded Public Health undergraduate students in the community.

Innovative Cross-Sector Approaches to Promoting Child Health and Wellbeing: The Role of the Pediatrician at the Intersection of Health, Education, and Social Services
3pm – 5pm | Convention Center 801B
Objectives: 1. Explain the need to develop new models of primary care delivery using a cross-sector population health framework, and explore possible opportunities and barriers to implementation of this approach. 2. Identify three innovative population health strategies that aim to link healthcare providers with schools and communities and offer potential solutions to common challenges. 3. Explore possible cross-sector programs and models that could be implemented in your respective work communities as well as potential sources of funding for these efforts.

Increasingly, pediatric clinicians and advocates are called on to use the tools of population health to improve health and wellbeing for all children. Such tools require clinicians to move outside of the walls of the clinic and to address health and social risks in the community. Such efforts bring challenges and opportunities as clinicians navigate new cross-sector partnerships, consider new metrics of program impact, identify new sources of funding, and test new programmatic approaches. This session will use a consultancy process, a structured group-based problem-solving method to discuss key challenges encountered when developing and implementing innovative programs that cut across health, education, and community based social service resources. Specifically, the workshop activities are designed to learn more about the successes and challenges of three new cross-sector models in Baltimore (Johns Hopkins Rales Center at KIPP Baltimore), New York City (the developing New York Presbyterian Early Childhood Family Hub), and East Palo Alto (the Primary School) and then to use the knowledge and experiences of the entire group to bring forward informed, actionable solutions to these challenges. We will discuss three core questions that commonly emerge when developing cross-sector pediatric models: 1) How do we develop, maintain, and navigate partnerships with stakeholders from other sectors?; 2) How do we demonstrate project impact and identify metrics without losing focus on service delivery?; and 3) How do we move beyond the school-based health clinic approach to achieve true health and educational integration in schools? Finally, we will discuss funding and sustaining these models. This interactive workshop will encourage participants to bring forward their own challenges, experiences, and expertise to increase shared capacity to enact cross-sector partnerships.

Sunday, May 6th

Medical-Financial Partnerships: Building Clinical Anti-Poverty Interventions to Improve Child Health
12pm – 3pm | Convention Center 705
Objectives: 1. Describe the impact of poverty on child health and emerging models for financial interventions in the pediatric medical home to improve population health. 2. Detail the steps involved in designing and implementing a financial intervention at their institutions, including assessment of existing clinical and community resources, potential for trainee involvement, program development, program evaluation, and creating a structure for sustainability. 3. Build an action plan for developing a proposal for a financial intervention at their own institution using lessons learned from small group activities and the use of a toolbox including templates, forms, and resources.

One fifth of US children live in poverty, increasing their risk of delayed development, chronic disease, and poor achievement. Reducing poverty and financial hardship would considerably improve child health, but poverty rates are static and half of families live paycheck to paycheck. The American Academy of Pediatrics has committed to eliminating child poverty and recommends pediatricians screen all families for financial strain, but strategies for tackling patients’ financial problems in the clinical setting are novel to most pediatricians. This workshop will provide knowledge and skills to integrate anti-poverty interventions into clinical practices via medical-financial partnerships (MFPs) linking patients and health systems to financial interventions addressing economic determinants of child health.

Our workshop will present a rationale, strategies, challenges, and solutions for addressing patient and family financial hardship. It will draw on experiences of leaders from four health systems successfully integrating financial interventions into clinical care. These experts’ MFPs include 1) free tax preparation embedded in pediatric clinics, 2) financial case-management as part of a social needs screening and referral service, 3) financial coaching co-located in a safety net hospital health system, and 4) clinical referrals to financial capability services improving income, debt, and savings.

Our interactive workshop will include:
1) An evidence review on the impact of poverty and financial hardship on child health, as well as the effects of financial capability services
2) Discussion of common financial problems encountered in participants’ practices
3) The MFP concept and clinical models
4) Active discussion of these models for participants to learn to develop such programs
5) Breakout groups to work collaboratively to problem-solve and develop plans for interventions tailored to patient needs at participants’ clinical settings
6) An electronic MFP development “toolbox” with validated financial assessment tools, sample program workflows, and ways to access the national MFP Learning Community.

Other skills the workshop will cover: needs assessment; identifying stakeholders, champions, and community partners; establishing measurable goals; engaging trainees; developing evaluation tools; and creating sustainability. At the end of this learner-centered workshop, participants will develop an action plan and proposal for a clinical anti-poverty intervention.

Responding After a Disaster: Using Design Thinking to Create a Sustainable System to Address Social Needs
12pm – 3pm | Convention Center 706
Objectives: 1. Learn the basics of design thinking and how to apply them to complex problems facing health systems/communities 2. Apply design thinking to identify the needs and develop potential solutions for families affected by a natural disaster 3. Evaluate one health system’s response to Hurricane Harvey

Design thinking is an applied research and innovation framework that prioritizes empathy for individuals and populations, involves diverse and collaborative project teams, and promotes iterative prototyping of user-derived insights. Design thinking focuses on how the people living within communities actually experience health challenges on a daily basis; on a continuum that cuts across sectors. It organizes multi-disciplinary teams around challenges, across different areas of expertise and different organizational structures. Design thinking takes a divergent, “hands-on” approach to authentically and creatively engaging “users,” where and how they live. In this way, just as it has been successfully deployed in the business world, design thinking offers a framework for uncovering and describing valuable “user” insights and stories which function as an effective organizing rubric for a variety of sectors and stakeholders to better understand how they currently link around particular public health challenges and how they might more effectively link in the future.

This workshop will walk participants through the design thinking process, specifically through the scenario of responding to families needs in the months after a natural disaster. The session will open with a brief framing of design thinking: what it is, where it came from, how it pertains to public health and healthcare and the approach we will utilize during the session. Then participants will break up into groups of 5-10 and each focus on a real family’s experience after Hurricane Harvey through provided narratives. Each group will diagram their family’s experience to better understand their challenges, assets, and important touch points. Guided by specific design thinking tools, each group will identify their family’s primary needs and assets to build solutions that respond most directly to the needs and capacity of each family/community. Each group will share their results. Next, the workshop session leaders will share their real experience and progress in the previous 9 months using design thinking to respond to the needs of families affected by Hurricane Harvey. To conclude, we will ask each participant to identify and share specific examples of how they might incorporate design thinking in their own work/organization in the next week and next month.

General Pediatrics: Feeding, Food Insecurity, and Obesity: Poster Session
5:45pm – 7:30pm | Convention Center Exhibit Hall DE
Standardizing Food Insecurity (FI) Screening in a Federally Qualified Health Center (Board 490)
Food Insecurity Prevalence and Risk Factors in a Mostly Hispanic/Latino Pediatric Population (Board 491)
Association of Food Insecurity and Childhood Weight Status in a Low-income Population (Board 492)

Monday, May 7th

Vulnerable and Underserved Populations/Health Equity and Social Justice I
10:30am – 12:30pm | Convention Center 201 E-F
Platform Presentations:
10:30 am – 10:45am: “Waking up every day with money on my mind”: a qualitative study of mothers’ experience with financial stress and its impact on maternal-child health
10:45am – 11:00am: Pervasive population disparities in inpatient bed-day rates across pediatric conditions and subspecialties
11:00am – 11:15am: The Impact of the Affordable Care Act on Participation in Medicaid Among Pediatricians
11:15am – 11:30am: High Rates of Adverse Childhood Experiences in Children with Special Health Care Needs
11:30am – 11:45am: right@home: Findings from an Australian randomized controlled trial of nurse home visiting on child and maternal outcomes at child age 3 years
11:45pm – 12:00pm: Health care cost-related hardships, health and economic stability among Arkansas working families with young children
12:00pm – 12:15pm: Caregiver Preferences for Food Insecurity Screening
12:15pm – 12:30pm: Predicting Early Emergence of Childhood Obesity in Underserved Preschoolers

Addressing the Impact of Health Disparities on Neonatal Outcomes
1:00pm – 3:00pm | Convention Center 103
Objectives: 1. Present data on the racial, ethnic and economic disparities in the US for neonatal and perinatal outcomes 2. Present data on the social, racial and economic factors that impact these disparities in the US on poor neonatal and perinatal outcomes compared to other high income countries 3. Present recent research on interventions that mitigate these outcomes 4. Present data on national, state and local interventions and policies that can reduce these disparities and discuss future interventions

Among high income countries, the United States has one of the highest neonatal mortality rates, and also suffers from other significant adverse neonatal and perinatal outcomes, in spite of high health dollar expenditures. Social, racial and economic disparities in the US maternal and neonatal population is the main cause of these poor outcomes which have actually worsened in recent years. This area has been a focus of a large body of recent research and evidence as to causes, as well as known effective interventions have been established. Identifying and understanding the role of these disparities in the US, as well as presenting evidence on interventions and factors that can mitigate these disparities will be critical to improving US neonatal and perinatal mortality and morbidity.

Vulnerable and Underserved Populations/Health Equity and Social Justice II
3:30pm – 5:30pm | Convention Center 606
Platform Presentations
5:15 – 5:30pm Medical-Legal Partnership: integrating lawyers into the health care setting to address social determinants of health

Tuesday, May 8th

Vulnerable and Underserved Populations/Health Equity and Social Justice 1-9: Poster Session
7:30am – 9:30am | Convention Center Exhibit Hall DE

Increased Rates of Food Insecurity and Housing Instability Amongst Children with Disabilities (Board 668)
The Impact of Food Insecurity on Toddler’s Nutrition: Gender Determines Intake (Board 669)
Caregivers’ Experiences with Food Insecurity Screening: Opportunity To Be Cared For, or Missed Opportunity? (Board 670)
Complete Eats: Summer Meals in the Emergency Department (Board 671)
Food Insecurity and Resource Engagement: How Can We Close the Gap? (Board 672)
Association of Food Insecurity with Psychosocial Determinants of Health (Board 673)
Food Security in Colonias of Hidalgo County, Texas: A Needs Assessment Analysis (Board 674)
Food insecure families infrequently redeem prescriptions for subsidized organic produce boxes (Board 675)
Patterns in repeated food insecurity screening as part of comprehensive screening for social determinants of health in a pediatric primary care practice. (Board 676)
The Validity of a Social Determinants of Health Scale for Use in Prenatal and Pediatric Care (Board 712)
Resident Screening for Unmet Social Needs by Health Care Setting (Board 713)
Material Hardships and Health Care Utilization among Low-Income Children with Special Health Care Needs (Board 714)
Associations between Social Determinants of Health and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder among Children and Adolescents (Board 715)
Successful implementation of social determinants of health screening in a high-risk newborn clinic (Board 716)
Assessment of Unmet Needs of Families in Crisis through a Home Visitation Program (Board 717)
Social Determinants of Health in a Community Hospital Clinic: Identification and Referral (Board 718)
Developing a more inclusive screening tool for identifying youth in unstable housing situations (Board 719)

Scratching Below the Surface: A Hands-On Approach to Creating a Successful Social Needs Screening Program: A Workshop
9:30am – 12:30pm | Convention Center 715A
Objectives: 1. Review the importance of screening for social needs in pediatric clinical settings and examine successful approaches 2. Identify current barriers to social screening at your institution with specific consideration of development, implementation, evaluation, and collaboration 3. Develop a blueprint for a modified social screening program to be applied at your institution

More than 16 million children in the United States live in households with incomes below the federal poverty level. Poverty adversely affects health outcomes across the life course. Additionally, poverty concentrates in certain neighborhoods often in close proximity to academic medical centers. Still, those who work in the medical center, and in busy clinical settings, may have a limited understanding of the realities patients and families frequently face. These limits may impede a clinician’s ability to identify health-related social needs rooted in poverty. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends screening for the social determinants of health (SDH) and collaborating with community organizations to help families address unmet needs. The Academic Pediatric Association (APA) Taskforce on Childhood Poverty has taken on this charge to create an agenda focused on lifting children out of poverty by addressing SDH-related risks. However, in busy clinical settings, social screening and action can be difficult to implement. In this highly interactive workshop, participants will be presented with a framework on the importance of social needs screening and examples of several different successful approaches from various clinical settings around the nation. Participants will reflect on their institution’s current strategies related to social needs screening and identify barriers related to four critical domains: screening tool development, implementation in a clinical setting, evaluation of effectiveness, and partnering with community organizations. After identifying major barriers to their own successful screening program, participants will work in small groups with facilitators to problem solve and identify realistic and feasible solutions. By the conclusion of the session, participants will have created a blueprint to modify their current social needs screening strategies to more effectively care for high risk populations.