General Pediatrician-Staffed Behavioral/Developmental Access Clinic Decreases Time to Evaluation of Early Childhood Developmental Disorders.
Meghan Harrison, Persephone Jones, Iman Sharif and 1 others
PMID 28538046WHAT IT FOUND
A general pediatrician access clinic saw children under 5 sooner for developmental evaluation: 159 days instead of 327 for already scheduled patients, and 11 days for new callers.
Key findings
01For patients already scheduled with a developmental specialist, the average wait to that specialist appointment was 327 days, while the average wait to the access clinic visit was 159 days.
02For patients calling for a new appointment after the access clinic started, the average wait to the access clinic visit was 11 days.
03Seventy-one percent of patients were referred to therapies including speech, occupational, physical, or feeding therapy.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTsWhat it means for OTsWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
Only 63 patients were reviewed, all under 5, and only the first 6 months of the clinic were included. The study did not review patients seen by the BDAC psychologist, so it describes only part of the clinic. It was done at one tertiary children's hospital that is a referral center for 4 neighboring states, so results may not transfer to other settings. Patients with significant medical complexity or second opinions for specific diagnoses were excluded, so it says nothing about those children. The main outcome was days to appointment and referral patterns, not whether children's development, behavior, or therapy outcomes improved. The general pediatrician had no additional formal training in developmental/behavioral pediatrics, so the result depends on the local specialist support model. No data were collected on why 36% of patients with already scheduled specialist appointments did not attend, so effects on specialist workload are partly inferred.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read the shorter wait times as proof that children's development or therapy results improved. The study measured days to appointment and referral patterns for 63 patients over 6 months, not diagnostic accuracy or treatment outcomes.