Transforming Care and Payment Priorities for Vulnerable Families

Transforming Care and Payment Priorities for Vulnerable Families

This will be a randomized control trial of 800 children admitted to the Pediatric Hospital Medicine service at Texas Children's Hospital. Each eligible participant will give informed consent prior to enrollment. Study participants will be randomized into an intervention (400 participants) or control group (400 participants). The intervention group will receive a survey (WE CARE HOUSTON) that has been designed to assess family need for community resources that address the SDH (such as food insecurity, housing insecurity, etc.). The intervention group will receive referrals to community resources based on their responses to the WE CARE HOUSTON survey.

This will be a randomized control trial of 800 children admitted to the Pediatric Hospital Medicine service at Texas Children's Hospital. Each eligible participant will give informed consent prior to enrollment.

Study participants will be randomized into an intervention (400 participants) or control group (400 participants). The intervention group will receive a survey (WE CARE HOUSTON) that has been designed to assess family need for community resources that address the SDH (such as food insecurity, housing insecurity, etc.). The intervention group will receive referrals to community resources based on their responses to the WE CARE HOUSTON survey. The intervention group will receive a phone call within 3 months of discharge to ask if they have had trouble following up with resources.

Both the intervention and the control groups will be followed for 6 months. Study investigators will obtain outcome data through structured telephone interviews at 6 months and also through medical record review.

This research has been designed to test our hypotheses:

1. The use of the WE CARE HOUSTON screening tool and subsequent referral to community resources will result in increased family participation in community resources that address the SDH; i.e. we believe that the intervention group will enroll in more community resources than the control group over the 6 month study period.
2. The use of the WE CARE HOUSTON screening tool and subsequent referral to community resources will result in improved health outcomes, i.e. children in the intervention group will have fewer emergency department visits, fewer readmissions, improved BMI and improved parent perception of child's health during the study period.

Inclusion Criteria:

• Children admitted to pediatric hospital medicine service

Exclusion Criteria:

• Children in child protective service custody
• Children residing outside of the greater Houston area