Third place team in the Innovator Awards: Children’s Health

A comprehensive integrated team of behavioral health professionals and a virtual health program housed in the North Texas Health System demonstrated innovation in many ways throughout the pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic put a lot of pressure on the entire health care ecosystem, and one of the biggest early challenges for patient care organization leaders was navigating the new landscape of transitioning a large number of in-person visits to telemedicine. While the pandemic has certainly impacted many health care institutions, hospitals have been disproportionately burdened; the American Hospital Association estimates that hospitals have suffered a financial loss of $202.6 billion, or an average of $50.7 billion per month, from March 1 to June 30, 2020. Part of that group in great financial difficulty were children’s hospitals, of which there are more than 250 In a May 2020 letter to then U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Alex Azar, executives from more than 75 children’s hospitals were explained that their revenues had dropped by more than 40 percent and were suffering losses of about $2 billion a month. One of the largest pediatric health systems in the United States, located in North Texas, sees about 75,000 patients each year as part of one of the largest pediatric health systems in the United States.

However, like most organizations across the country, the typical patient experience at Children’s Health began to change rapidly as COVID-19 became more prevalent in the Dallas metro area. Suddenly, patients became hesitant to attend their in-person appointments, make new appointments, or receive medical care in general for fear of contracting the virus. About 15 percent of pediatric patients nationwide are classified as children with special health care needs, and about 3 million U.S. families have more than one child with such needs, as indicated by the Special Needs Financial Planning Organization. At Children’s Health, in particular, the organization’s behavioral health team, which offers its patients a variety of behavioral health services, treatments and therapies, recognized that their core work would become even more important in these unprecedented times, prompting team members to change their existing strategies and operations to ensure comfort and safety for both patients and their families.

When the behavioral health team assessed the patient population at the beginning of the pandemic, three key groups came to the fore: general patients with various medical conditions; patients recovering from substance abuse; and people with developmental disabilities. With this key audience information, the behavioral health team set out to create strong alternatives to traditional face-to-face care, and the efforts of the integrated behavioral health team and the health system’s virtual health program led to it being named a third person.

School-based mental health moves into the home As part of a common cohort of patients with a variety of conditions, Children’s Health’s school-based remote behavioral health program virtually connects students in 178 North Texas schools with licensed mental health professionals. addressing common behavioral health issues, including depression, anxiety, self-esteem and coping skills. Usually in this program, the school will identify a student with a potential behavioral health need and then, if deemed necessary, refer the student to Children’s Health. If such a referral occurs, a licensed health care provider will conduct family outreach, conduct a behavioral health assessment, provide supportive telephone case management and, when clinically appropriate, offer telehealth behavioral health therapy sessions at the student’s school. at the school and with a physician at another location.