Health Care Management and Coordination
Health care management is the fundamental mechanism by which we ensure that all of the health needs of individual children and teens in foster care are met, and that a health care plan is integrated into the child or teen’s welfare permanency plan. Health care management is critical for ensuring that children and teens in foster care receive all of the appropriate and recommended health care services. Health care management is a responsibility of the foster care agency but requires health care expertise.
Components of health care management for children and teens in foster care
- Access to health care in a medical home
- Maintenance of health information and health care record
- Signed consents for health care for all health professionals providing care
- Health insurance
- Coordinated care, ensuring all appropriate, necessary, and recommended health care services are received according to health care standards
- Communication of health information among all the health, mental health, child welfare, legal, judicial, and other professionals
- Provision of health information and education to the child or teen in foster care and parents (foster and birth) and kin
- Coordinated effort for incorporating health information and planning into the permanency plan
- Maintenance of a health database to monitor and evaluate the health of children and teens in foster care to ensure quality improvement
