A Road Map for Academic Developmental-Behavioral Pediatric Practices to Increase Access

Abstract

There are currently at least 19 million children and adolescents in the United States with disorders of development (learning disorders, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, intellectual disabilities, autism, motor incoordination/cerebral palsy, etc.) and only approximately 800 board-certified developmental-behavioral pediatricians (DBPs) practicing nationally. Given the astronomical mismatch between the number of children and adolescents with developmental disorders and the number of board-certified DBPs, developmental-behavioral pediatric consultations are likely the most inaccessible in all of medicine. With the goal of increasing access to these consultations, an academic developmental-behavioral practice in a large urban hospital system developed a longitudinal "Road Map," led by our team of social workers, which is designed to provide such services while continuing to focus DBP efforts on initial consultative evaluation and diagnosis of as many children as possible. The programs that this new Road Map has provided have allowed the DBP practice not only to increase access to developmental evaluations but also to provide more holistic and targeted care from the point of being added to the waiting list and then throughout the life span at vital transition periods. Especially given the extreme mismatch between the scarce number of practicing DBPs and the prodigious number of pediatric patients with disorders of development, our hope is that other centers will consider replicating this innovative care model to address the ever-growing need for specialized DBP consultation and longitudinal wraparound care for our patients and families.