Information, Data, and Research on Children’s Health in Florida
State Specific Child Health Data
Looking for child health data specific to Florida? The Children’s Hospital Association’s interactive dashboard provides state-specific data that can be downloaded and printed as a PDF. Data includes:
- health insurance coverage
- access to health care services, including children’s hospitals
- special health care needs
- socioeconomic status
- adverse experiences
- food security
The dashboard is regularly updated. Find it here: Resource for Interactive Child Health (RICH) Data Dashboard
Best and Worst States for Children's Health Care
Wallet Hub compared the 50 states and the District of Columbia across 35 key indicators of cost, quality and access to children’s health care. The data set ranges from share of children aged 0-17 in excellent or very good health, to pediatricians and family doctors per capita. Florida ranked 41st overall.
Get the breakdown and learn more about individual indicator rankings.
Children's Health and Well Being During the Coronavirus Epidemic
The debate over school openings has highlighted the implications of the coronavirus pandemic for children and their families. While experts continue to gather data on children’s risk for contracting and transmitting coronavirus, current research suggests that though children are more likely to be asymptomatic and less likely to experience severe disease than adults, they are capable of transmitting to both other children and adults. In addition to the risk of disease and illness, COVID-19 has led to changes in schooling, health services delivery, and other disruptions of normal routines that will likely affect children’s health and well-being, regardless of whether they are infected. Read more.
Comprehensive Review: Supporting Pediatric Research on Outcomes and Utilization of Telehealth
For years, although technology has advanced dramatically and well-developed programs have gained traction, gaining widespread adoption of telehealth has been a challenge.
Yet, telehealth is ideally suited to address many of the challenges posed by COVID-19. It facilitates infection control/isolation capabilities, expands healthcare capacities, facilitates triage/appropriate resource utilization, conserves PPE, protects clinicians, allows clinical work from home, and allows patients to remain home. Read more
The COVID Tracking Project at the Atlantic
The COVID Tracking Project at the Atlantic collects, cross-checks, and publishes COVID-19 data from 56 US states and territories in three main areas: testing, hospitalization, and patient outcomes, racial and ethnic demographic information via The COVID Racial Data Tracker, and long-term-care facilities via the Long-Term-Care tracker. The numbers are compiled to provide the most complete picture that can be assembled of the US COVID-19 testing effort and the outbreak’s effects on the people and communities it strikes. Data is updated daily Search data here
How Much Does the Federal Government Spend on Programs Benefitting Children?
How our government spends money, and who benefits from that spending, reflects our national priorities. Today’s investment in children affects tomorrow’s workforce; economy; and educational, criminal justice, and health care systems. Here is the link to the report.
Number of Uninsured Children Increasing
Georgetown University Center for Children and Families Health Policy Institute has released its annual report on uninsured children. The report shows that Florida had a statistically significant increase in both the uninsured number of children and the uninsured rate from 2016-2018. Florida also had the second highest number of uninsured children, only behind Texas. Here is the link to the report.
Demonstrating Value in Pediatrics
The Children’s Hospital Association has released the “Demonstrating Value in Pediatrics: A Measure Menu, Workbook & Guidance for Value-based Care, Payment and Reporting Programs” resource.
This resource is designed to save hospitals and health systems significant time and effort in identifying meaningful quality measures for value-based programs. The Demonstrating Value in Pediatric resource includes: a measure menu listing 67 carefully vetted pediatric measures (an Excel workbook), and a report including the consensus-based vetting approach, seven steps to successful measure selection and use, stepwise guidance on the use of the workbook, and commentary on gaps and opportunities in pediatric quality and measurement.
You can find the report and the measure menu workbook on the Children’s Hospital Association website.
The Georgetown University Center for Children and Families Issues Fourth in Series of Briefs on the Future of Children's Health Care Coverage
Medicaid, along with CHIP, serves four out of five young children in poverty. Yet Medicaid can do more to elevate the needs of these children. Prioritizing young children in Medicaid through cross-sector, innovative practice change has the potential to improve their lifetime trajectories, overall population health and long-run savings.
This new brief examines ways for state and federal policymakers to use Medicaid and CHIP to more effectively put young children on the best path for success in school and in life.
FACH and KidCare
FACH member hospitals take an active role in ensuring children are enrolled in health care coverage that meets their unique needs. All children are provided with care regardless of their family’s ability to pay. FACH members also assist families with applying for appropriate Florida KidCare programs. FACH partners with the Healthy Kids Corporation to provide ongoing training for hospital staff to assist families and FACH is available to all member hospitals to provide technical assistance with Florida KidCare enrollment. Children’s needs do not end when they leave the walls of our hospitals, and our members provide assistance and follow up to make sure our patients can access the care that will keep them healthy and safe.