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Program Offered by Lifetime Health Medical Group Found to Have Lasting Effect

ROCHESTER, NY – The Healthy Steps^sm for Young Children Program, which added behavior and development services to pediatric practices, continued to benefit families more than two years after the intervention ended, according to a study by researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Lifetime Health Medical Group, in conjunction with Lifetime Care, is currently the only health care organization in New York State to offer Healthy Steps, having enhanced its pediatric practices at the Wilson, Greece and Perinton pediatric offices to include the program for newborns and their families.

According to Johns Hopkins, the sustained benefits from participation in Healthy Steps included greater satisfaction among parents with their child’s health care, greater odds that parents will report a child’s serious behavioral issue to the pediatrician and greater odds of children reading books. Parents also were less likely to use severe discipline such as spanking with an object or slapping in the face. The findings were published in the September 2007 edition of Pediatrics.

“The findings of the Johns Hopkins study are in line with what we found when we conducted our own research in 2002,” explains Sheila Darling, MBA, LMSW, IBCLC coordinator of the Healthy Steps^sm for Young Children Program of Lifetime Health Medical Group and Lifetime Care. “We were happy to see additional independent research showing a continuing trend of long-term benefit.” Lifetime Health has served 2,000 children through the Healthy Steps program since it adopted the program in October, 2000.

“Incorporating developmental specialists into pediatric practices seems to be an effective strategy to meet families’ needs regarding their children’s behavior and development,” said Cynthia Minkovitz, MD, MPP, lead author of the Johns Hopkins study and associate professor with the School’s Department of Population, Family and Reproductive Health. Minkovitz noted that this universal practice-based intervention had favorable, sustained effects on “experiences seeking health care and other parenting behaviors that are critical to children’s development.”

Healthy Steps for Young Children was initially designed by Boston University and The Commonwealth Fund to meet the early development and behavior needs of young children by enhancing the relationships between parents and children, families and the pediatric practice, and among physicians and staff. The program placed trained developmental specialists in pediatric practices to provide enhanced behavior and development services during the first three years of a child’s life. Healthy Steps services included enhanced well-child care, home visits from developmental specialists, a telephone help line, developmental assessments, educational materials, support groups to aid parents with developmental concerns and linkages to community resources.

To determine whether Healthy Steps had any sustained effect, Minkovitz and her colleagues conducted follow-up phone interviews with 3,165 families enrolled in a national evaluation. Some families received the additional enhanced services provided as part of Healthy Steps, while others did not. The interviews were conducted when the children reached 5.5 years of age, which was 2.5 years after intervention services were discontinued.

Previous studies by Minkovitz and her colleagues found that families who participated in Healthy Steps received higher quality of care and had more favorable parenting practices. This study shows sustained treatment effects even after the intervention ended.

Healthy Steps for Young Children is a joint program offered by Lifetime Health Medical Group and Lifetime Care. For more information about the pediatric department or the Healthy Steps for Young Children Program of Lifetime Health Medical Group, call 338-4944 or visit: http://www.lifetimehealth.org/Home/PatientInfo/Services/Rochester/HealthySteps.

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