When does the program start and how long will it last? The starting date is January 24, 2007. The program will continue for twelve months. The last meeting will take place on December 19, 2007. There will be a second round of sessions beginning in the Spring 2008 and ending in the Winter/Spring 2009. This second round of sessions will be for an entirely new and separate group of pediatricians and nurse practitioners. Each group of sessions is twelve months in duration.
What will be the usual time, day of the month, and location? It will usually be on the 4th Wednesday of the month, from 5:30 – 7:30 pm with exceptions, which accommodate certain holidays. Refreshments will be served. Program dates:
January 24, 2007, February 28th, March 28th, April 25th, May 30th, June 27th, July 25th, August 29th, September 26th, October 24th, November 21st, and December 19th, 2007.
A special 6-hour PERCS (Program to Enhance Relational and Communication Skills) training will be held on a Saturday in the winter of 2007.
Where will the program be held? The program will be held in the Bowles 6 conference room of Newton-Wellesley Hospital, on the second floor, near the Hospital dining room.
What are the benefits for participating in this project? For those who participate, the benefits will include:
– $1000.00 stipend for those who complete the program
– An experiential training, "Difficult Conversations for Community Pediatrics" via the Program to Enhance Relational and Communication Skills (PERCS). A special PERCS program is being designed for CEHL participants. Tuition will be paid by CEHL. Please refer towww.childrenshospital.org/percs for information on the PERCS programs.
– An opportunity to interact and to discuss difficult cases with colleagues
– CME credits, including risk management credits
– Reimbursement from major payers for parent interviews
– Consultation is available with a mental health professional between meetings
– Community resource identification to help you locate appropriate services for your patients and their families
– Your name and practice information posted on www.cehl.org, if you wish, for parents who are interested in finding psychosocially skilled pediatricians
– Participation in a study of the impact of psychosocial training upon clinicians and helping improve the management of emotional issues in pediatric practice
What are the responsibilities for those who participate?
– Attendance at eleven of the twelve sessions.
– Presentation of one or more cases from your practice. Your case will be reviewed beforehand with members of the faculty.
– Participation in the PERCS training
– Completion of two provider surveys and identification of five parents in your practice, who will be asked to complete a parent survey at the end of the program.
How many health professionals are participating in this project? Thirty health professionals will be invited to participate, with group size being approximately 15.
The majority of the participants will be pediatricians although nurse practitioners are welcome if they are part of a pediatric practice, and regularly work with parents and children.
Why is it important to collect data from the participants and a select number of the parents in their practice? Up to now, health plans have been skeptical about the value of incorporating mental health concepts within the context of the pediatrician or nurse practitioner – parent relationship. Can pediatricians learn how to master these concepts? Will parents be enthusiastic about this kind of intervention? Can it be achieved in a cost-effective way? These are some of the questions that this project hopes to address, making use of the aforementioned surveys.
Who will be primarily responsible for teaching? Elizabeth Rider, MSW, MD will be the senior faculty person, along with contributions by Julia Swartz, LICSW, CEIS and Howard King, MD, MPH. Other guest faculty will be invited to participate.
Who is providing the funding for this project? The Massachusetts Department of Mental Health, The Alden Trust, The Newton Public Schools Mental Health Project, and The Sidney R. Baer, Jr. Foundation
What type of educational resources will be made available for the participants? The material covered in www.cehl.org will be available. Various articles, handouts and resources will be distributed in a workbook provided before the program begins, and in our monthly sessions.
What are the educational goals of this project?
– To improve your ability to evaluate and manage emotional and psychosocial problems commonly seen in pediatric practice with children, adolescents and their families.
– To identify family issues and emotional problems of children and adolescents early, when there is the best opportunity for intervention
– To learn a framework for effective communication skills and interpersonal relationships.
What are the research goals of this project? We expect that health professionals, who participate in such a project over a twelve-month period, will demonstrate greater competence in communication and in understanding and addressing psychosocial issues compared to those participants who do not take part in this seminar.
We anticipate that thirty pediatricians and nurse practitioners or more will wish to take part in this project.
Since we can only effectively work with fifteen professionals at a time, we will randomly assign participants into two groups, i.e. an "experimental group" and a "control group."
Potential participants should not underestimate the importance of the control group for this project. Funders and health plans are very interested in whether we can demonstrate increased psychosocial competence in the experimental group.
The difference between the groups is that the experimental group will take an active part in the twelve monthly sessions, and will receive, among other things, a stipend of $1000.00 and CME credits for doing so.
The control group will be encouraged to increase their competence in any way they wish, e.g. reviewing the website contents (www.cehl.org), but they will not take part in the twelve monthly sessions. In return for an appropriate stipend, they will be asked to respond to two provider surveys and to solicit the cooperation of five families during this project. They will also be given priority to participate in the second year of this 3-year project, with all the benefits previously mentioned, including the $ 1000.00 stipend, CME credits, etc.
Conclusion:
The process of evaluation is vital to the success of this project.
We believe that the data we collect will demonstrate to third-party payers why this approach is important both from the standpoint of patient and physician satisfaction and in terms of the quality of the doctor-patient relationship. This project would not be successful without the control group's participation.
We are confident that the members of the control group, when they become the next experimental group, will be both surprised and pleased by the psychosocial competence they will have acquired by the end of the project.
The leadership of CEHL II looks forward to meeting all of you who express interest in taking part in this project. We plan to have an open meeting sometime in the Fall to answer any additional questions.
