THE IMPACT OF CARE COORDINATION ON CHILDREN WITH SPECIAL HEALTH-CARE NEEDS

Families of children with special health care needs face challenges in securing comprehensive health, educational, and social services. As a result, care may be fragmented, duplicative, confusing, and unnecessarily costly. Case management or care coordination is a method of overcoming some of the obstacles experienced by these children and their families. This article describes the Automated Case Management System/Community Based Care Coordination Project for California Children Services Children and Their Families in Los Angeles County (grant number MCJ 065020), a grant project funded by the Maternal Child Health Bureau from October 1987 to December 1990 in which family-centered, community-based care coordination services were provided to a select group of clients and the effectiveness of the interventions was evaluated. Care coordination was readily accepted by families and resulted in increased services, but the evaluation proved to be challenging.