Sarah Rafton, MSW
Executive Director, WCAAP
WCAAP, Seattle Children’s and Public Health – Seattle & King County have formed the King County Child Health Improvement Partnership (K-CHIP), funded by the Best Starts for Kids initiative. Doug Opel, MD, MPH, FAAP and I are co-leading the initiative with significant support and involvement from Annika Hoffstetter, MD, PhD, MPH, FAAP, and Joel Tieder, MD, MPH, FAAP, and WCAAP’s Tatiana Sarkhosh, MPH.
K-CHIP has two key arms: 1) a pediatric improvement partnership and 2) a learning collaborative.
A pediatric improvement partnership is a durable state or regional collaboration of public and private partners that uses the science of quality improvement and a systems approach to improve health care infrastructure and practice. Such partnerships formally exist in states including Alabama, Arizona, Utah, Oregon, Vermont and Washington, DC.
Pediatric improvement partnerships bring together key players from across the health care system who can effect desired changes. This includes partners and representatives from state Medicaid, public health, professional organizations, academic institutions, children’s hospitals, healthcare delivery institutions, policymakers and insurers.
The K-CHIP learning collaborative will support three cohorts of clinics to increase adolescent vaccination coverage. Over a 6-month period, clinics will identify opportunities to increase adolescent vaccinations, implement improvements, receive regular data and coaching, and benefit from participating in a community of clinics working toward the same goals. The overarching goal for the initiative is to improve HEDIS Combo 2 (Tdap, MCV, and up-to-date HPV vaccines by age 13) coverage by 10%.
Our first cohort includes Neighborcare Columbia City, Pediatrics Northwest Federal Way, Mary Bridge Covington and Valley Medical Center Covington. Each site has two leads who will lead the intervention for their clinic. In addition to Pediatrics Northwest’s Federal Way site, their Pierce county clinics have been trained by the K-CHIP team and will simultaneously implement the intervention, without direct coaching or data support from K-CHIP. The first cohort will conclude in March 2020, when our second cohort begins. At minimum, the initiative will run until Spring 2021.
We intend/plan to bring this learning collaborative to other regions of the state with remote support via phone and webinar, and we are seeking funding that would allow us to launch this statewide effort in 2020.
Please contact Tatiana Sarkhosh if you are a King County site interested in participating in K-CHIP’s cohort 2, which begins in March 2020 or cohort 3, which begins in September 2020.
