Elizabeth (Cason) Benton, M.D., has received the 2018 Paul V. Miles Fellowship Award from the American Board of Pediatrics, an honor that highlights a pediatrician who is dedicated to improving the quality of health care for children.
An associate professor in UAB’s Department of Pediatrics, Benton is the founding director of the Alabama Child Health Improvement Alliance and also sees patients at the UAB Primary Care Clinic located at Children’s of Alabama. Her interest focus is in quality improvement in children, and she has helped lead the development of quality improvement initiatives at UAB and across the state of Alabama.
Specifically, with the Alabama Child Health Improvement Alliance, Benton has developed and led five quality improvement collaboratives across the state regarding obesity treatment and prevention, screening for developmental delay, autism, social emotional issues, and preventing HPV-related cancers.
“Which measures should primary care practices prioritize in the next five years to improve health outcomes for children and youth?”
To answer that question, ACHIA’s partners, including UAB and Children's of Alabama, weighed the impact and feasibility of more than 100 health measures during a year-long process guided by the UAB School of Public Health.
From the measures list, three were determined to provide the best opportunities for improvement:
- Asthma
- Adolescent Well Child Visits
- Developmental Screening
ACHIA’s 2018-2020 quality improvement learning collaboratives will tackle these topics. The collaboratives incorporate the Model for Improvement, run over 9 months and provide Part 4 MOC and CME. Practices complete online modules taught by Alabama experts; benefit from QI coaching; and share best practices with one another on monthly webinars.
Interested in partnering with ACHIA to work with engaged practices on these health topics?
Contact Cason Benton, MD, FAAP cbenton@peds.uab.edu.
Interested in participating in the 2018 Asthma collaborative?
Contact Linda Champion, lchampion@alaap.org.
More information on Continuous Quality Improgement Collaborative:
Which practices should enroll?
- Practices that want to start screening.
- Practices that want to increase screening consistency.
- Practices that want to switch screens from a paper to an electronic format.
The collaborative will run from January to September 2017. Enrollment is through December 31, 2016.
Contact lchampion@alaap.org or click here to learn more.
In other ACHIA news:
- Prevent HPV Cancers Today! An ACHIA HPV QI Collaborative, presented in conjunction with the Alabama Chapter-AAP, the Alabama Academy of Family Physicians, and the Alabama Department of Public Health, gets underway this month. It is ACHIA’s largest collaborative yet with 11 practices and 59 pediatricians and family physicians from across Alabama participating.
- “The Big Sort”: All health issues for children are important—but what are the most critical issues for Alabama child healthcare providers to prioritize in the next few years? Asthma? ADHD? Screening for delay? The University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Public Health is leading ACHIA partners and others interested in child health in a process to sort and prioritize health topics. The results will be used to channel energies for future ACHIA collaboratives and other continuous quality improvement endeavors. At the Chapter’s Spring Meeting at the end of April, we will present more information about the sort process and how members can participate.