Promising Practice

VCHIP – Youth Health Improvement Initiative

State/Jurisdiction: Vermont
Setting: Clinical
Population: Adolescents & Young Adults
Topic Area: Access to Quality Healthcare Safe and Connected Communities Family & Youth Engagement Primary & Preventative Care
NPMs: NPM 10: Adolescent Well-Visit NPM 13.2: Preventative Dental Visit – Child/Adolescent

The Youth Health Improvement Initiative (YHII) began in 2001 through the partnership between Vermont MCH, the Vermont Child Health Improvement Program (VCHIP), Vermont Medicaid, and private insurers. YHII was developed to focus on the unique needs of the adolescent population. Since inception, this project has demonstrated numerous measurable improvements in preventive services and continues to work to increase rates of preventive health visits. In its earlier years, YHII focused on increasing the skills and confidence of providers (pediatricians, family medicine physicians, nurse practitioners, office staff) in providing comprehensive preventive health visits, including screening for risks and assessing strengths. When Bright Futures 3rd edition was released, Vermont providers were ready to deliver comprehensive services to adolescents; however, found that many adolescents did not access these services on an annual basis. Data showed that among high school aged adolescents with insurance, only one-half of privately insured and one-third of Medicaid insured had well visits. School nurse reports of adolescent well-visit rates demonstrated that visits dropped steadily throughout high school.


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Implementation Handout



CONTACT INFORMATION
VCHIP - Vermont Child Health Improvement Program
Alyssa Consigli, RDN, CPHQ
alyssa.consigli@med.uvm.edu

Practice Website