You may remember that Help Me Grow got to participate in the Alabama Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatric’s (AL-AAP)’s Quality Improvement/Maintenance of Certification training last year and in May of this year we featured Linda Lee, the Executive Director of AL-AAP. Now we’d like you to meet Linda Champion! Linda is the Project Coordinator for AL-AAP and she oversees the chapter’s quality improvement initiatives. Her work focuses on enhancing knowledge of specific pediatric best practices and building capacity for improved care of children and youth throughout the state. Currently, Linda is coordinating efforts centered on asthma as well as developmental screening and is working with pediatric specialists at the UAB Department of Pediatrics to improve practice processes to prevent and manage childhood obesity. Linda is very involved around the state and serves on numerous task forces and committees relating to children’s health and pediatric care.

Linda has experience in successfully infusing quality improvement practices into pediatric offices. She currently coordinates with Help Me Grow – Central Alabama to ensure pediatricians in Jefferson, Blount, Shelby, St. Clair, and Walker counties are implementing universal, standardized developmental screenings (ASQ-3). Linda helps track clinic progress towards ensuring every child gets screened at the 9-, 12-, 18-, 24-, and 30-month intervals. Pediatricians receive guidance from Linda to ensure they are doing everything they can according to AAP to best serve children and families.

The project’s goal is to use a standardized developmental screening for earlier identification of and intervention for developmental delays. Linda aids with care coordination in the pediatric office and improves linkages for parents to appropriate community resources. Within a medical home model, the project provides peer-to-peer learning, education, and technical assistance to:

• Provide patient/family-centered care in medical home settings. 
• Improve clinical skills using standardized developmental screening tools to achieve measurable improvements in health outcomes of children. 
• Implement and evaluate quality improvement practice-level, system-based changes. 
• Network with community and state agencies to enhance referral relationships and increase appropriate referrals to Help Me Grow, Alabama’s Early Intervention System, care coordination services, and other providers of developmental and social-emotional services in the community. 
• Improve parental communication with providers regarding concerns about their child’s development and behavior. 

The first year of Help Me Grow – Central Alabama involved five pediatric practices who took part in collaborative conference calls to share successes and ideas on how the process is unfolding in their practices. Help Me Grow staff attended the calls, provided information on how to connect to services, and even visited the practices on-site. During Year 2, the group will continue this process and expand to include more pediatricians and their practices. If you’d like to know more about how a pediatric office can connect to Help Me Grow, contact Linda at 334-324-9307 or [email protected].