Care Coordination

Care coordination ensures the most effective and efficient delivery of health services, as well as the linkage of health to other service sectors. 

CONNECTING CHILDREN & FAMILIES TO APPROPRIATE CARE

Care coordination connects children and their families to specialty services and community supports to ensure optimal health and development.

Effective care coordination ensures that children receive all the services that they need and use these services efficiently. This helps avoid duplication and unnecessary visits, which are inconvenient and stressful for families, and increase health care costs.

CHDI & Care Coordination

CHDI supported a pilot care coordination program in Hartford – Health Outreach for Medical Equality (H.O.M.E.) – and learned that when care coordinators work in a pediatric primary care site:

• Children are more frequently linked to dental and mental health services
• Families experience improved linkage to services and greater confidence in obtaining health services for their children
• Pediatric providers believe their ability to provide comprehensive care is enhanced

In 2011, using lessons learned from the H.O.M.E project, CHDI supported the startup of the Hartford Care Coordination Collaborative (HCCC), which:

• Increases access to children’s services in the greater Hartford area 
• Brings together care coordination resources from the Department of Social Services, the Medicaid Administrative Services Organization (Community Health Network), the Department of Children and Families, United Way/Child Development Infoline, CT Family Support Network and the leadership of the region’s Title V Children with Special Health Care Needs support center (the Connecticut Children’s Special Kids Support Center [SKSC]

In 2014, the State Department of Public Health allocated funding to five regional care coordination centers to replicate the Hartford Care Coordination Collaborative model statewide. DPH also awarded funding to the Office for Community Child Health at CT Children’s to work with CHDI to provide technical assistance to the five regional care coordination centers to help them develop regional care coordination collaboratives.

In 2015, DPH received funding from the federal Health Resources and Services Administration to expand the care coordination collaborative model to all regions in Connecticut and to forge partnerships at the state level to ensure sustainability of cross-sector care coordination efforts. CHDI is the evaluator for this statewide effort.

Read more about Connecticut’s care coordination collaboratives or contact us to learn more.