Abstract:
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) Bright Futures (BF) guidelines for well child care
were designed to provide quality pediatric care. Adherence to AAP-BF guidelines improves:
screenings, identification of developmental delay, immunization rates, and early identification of
children with special healthcare needs. The current guideline set is comprehensive and includes
thirty one well child exams, thirty three universal screening exams and one hundred seventeen
selective screening exams. Many providers have difficulty meeting all guideline requirements
and are at risk of committing Medicaid fraud if a well exam is coded and requirements are not
met. The goal of this quality improvement project was to design open source and adaptable
templates for each pediatric age group to improve provider adherence to the BF guidelines. A
Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) quality improvement model was used to implement the project.
Templates were created for ages twelve months to eighteen years and disseminated to a pilot
clinic in Anchorage, Alaska. The providers were given pre-implementation and postimplementation
surveys to determine the efficacy and usefulness of the templates. Templates
were determined to be useful and efficient means in providing Bright Futures focused well child
care. The templates are in the process of being disseminated on a large scale to assist other
providers in meeting BF guideline requirements.
