New Report Provides a Roadmap for Connecticut to Improve Child Health Outcomes and Reduce Costs of Care by Enhancing and Expanding Care Coordination

For Immediate Release

September 30, 2020

New Report Provides a Roadmap for Connecticut to Improve Child Health Outcomes and Reduce Costs of Care by Enhancing and Expanding Care Coordination

Farmington, CT – Care coordination plays a critical role in supporting families with complex physical and/or behavioral health needs and has been shown to reduce costs associated with care. A new IMPACT report, Improving Care for Children and Families with Complex Needs: Enhancing Care Coordination in Connecticut, reviews the landscape of care coordination programs in Connecticut and outlines a roadmap for enhancing and expanding care coordination to improve outcomes for children and families. The report was released today by the Child Health and Development Institute (CHDI) and was co-authored by Aleece Kelly, MPP and Kellie Randall, PhD.

“Care coordination plays a pivotal role in supporting parents of children with special health care needs; however, many families report not receiving effective coordination of services,” said Jeffrey Vanderploeg, President and CEO of CHDI. “While Connecticut has a robust system of care coordination as compared to other states, there is still room for improvement. This report highlights many exemplary care coordination approaches in place in Connecticut, and describes strategies for strengthening and expanding care coordination in Connecticut to reduce the burden on families, promote health equity, and improve outcomes for children.”

In Connecticut, approximately one in five children (140,000) has complex health, developmental, or behavioral health needs requiring more frequent or more intensive care than a child in the general population typically uses. Nationally, 40% of parents of children with special health care needs who wanted care coordination reported not receiving effective coordinated services. As care systems have grown more complex, care coordination has been promoted as a strategy to not only help these families, but also to benefit providers and systems. Care coordination is central to any health reform efforts because it is shown to reduce costs and improve health outcomes for children with complex conditions.

Care coordination is also well-positioned to address the social, economic, and environmental factors (i.e., social determinants of health) that influence an individual’s health. However, while there is widespread enthusiasm for care coordination across both the physical and behavioral health fields, the lack of consensus on best practices, silos across fields, and uncoordinated funding approaches have kept it from having the full impact that many envision and hope it can have.

This IMPACT identifies effective care coordination strategies and includes recommendations at the policy, system, and program levels to expand and improve care coordination services in the state, including:

• Promote policies that directly address the conditions that lead to poor health and health disparities, particularly racial and ethnic health disparities;
• Ensure that care coordination services address social determinants of health;
• Remove barriers to integrating primary and behavioral health care;
• Use Wraparound principles to implement a family-driven approach to care coordination.

Download a copy of the IMPACT, Improving Care for Children and Families with Complex Needs: Enhancing Care Coordination in Connecticut at www.chdi.org. 

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