Well Baby Visit Program At Sharbot Lake Family Health Team

Feb 27, 2014

In October 2013, staff at the Sharbot Lake Family Health Team (SLFHT) received an award at the Primary Care Forum, which was held in Kingston. The award was from Kingston Frontenac Lennox and Addington Public Health and recognized the success of their Enhanced 18-Month Well-Baby Visit program.

The Well-Baby Visit program was developed in 2005 after researchers found that Ontario school-aged children, regardless of socio-economic boundaries, were falling below the average curve for school test scores across the country. The program was developed and spearheaded by Dr. Clinton, a child psychologist from Hamilton, Ontario, to address that trend, with the understanding that pinpointing and addressing a multitude of health issues between birth and age five can correct problems that might otherwise develop and negatively affect children's health and learning.

The program involves a one-time in-depth physical and developmental assessment of children at the age of 18 months and it strives to identify problems early on so that children can be referred to the appropriate professionals to correct the issues. The goal is that the children will be able to meet their developmental and educational milestones later on. Children identified with possible concerns related to autism, family violence or assault, nutrition, parenting, physical/neurological/ or developmental issues, social/emotional or behavioral issues, speech language and hearing or vision issues can be referred to the appropriate health care providers to have those issues addressed.

Brenda Bonner, the nurse practitioner at the SLFHT, worked on the pilot project and along with KFL&A Public Health, helped to set up the referral stream for the SLFHT patients. The program includes two assessments, the first, the Nipissing Developmental Stage screen, is carried out by the parents of the child and the second, the Rourke Baby Record assessment, is performed by Brenda Bonner at the SLFHT. This latter assessment was developed by two family doctors from Goderidge and it is widely acclaimed and accepted by the College of Family Physicians. The Rourke assessment examines the emotional, social, physical development of the child by age 18 months and includes necessary immunizations as well. A dietary assessment is also performed on every child by the SLFHT's dietician, Salam Iqbal.

Brenda Bonner said the program is an important one. “We have been told that the number of occupied jail cells in Texas directly correlates to the outcome of grade three test scores, which proves that early detection of health and developmental issues is key. The fact is that children who are having trouble learning in school can tend to have less successful outcomes later in life, and knowing that these issues, if detected early, can be addressed and corrected is what is motivating us to have all our patients complete the assessments.”
The 18-Month Well-Baby Visit was rolled out beginning in 2008 and at that time the KFL& A Public Health Unit took the lead with the program. They chose the Sharbot Lake Family Health Team as one of the pilots for the project. By 2013 the SLFHT achieved a 100% completion of the program by its patients and that is the reason that they received the award. Bonner said staff were able to reach their 100% goal “partly because we have a small team and a relatively small number of patients, but also because the staff at the clinic here have been working together as a team to meet that goal.”

The final aim is to get all family health teams and all family physicians to participate in the program. Darlene Johnson, with KLF &A Public Health was at the Sharbot Lake Medical Centre on February 19 to discuss the award with staff. “The Sharbot Lake Family Health Team have done a fabulous job in implementing the program here and we wanted to both recognize and congratulate them on their efforts. Our gold standard is to have every single child complete the 18-Month Well-Baby Visit since it is the key to early intervention and a way of connecting the child and the parents to the appropriate local resource so that any issues raised can be addressed in a timely fashion,” she said.

Brenda Bonner stressed that the goal of the program is always to help support the child so that the child can meet all of their milestones, can succeed and have a happy and fulfilling life. “We always try to remind parents that if concerns are identified, it is not that the parents have done anything wrong, but rather is a way to correct the issues early on so that their child has every opportunity to reach their full potential.”