Back in the day when doctors made house calls -- yes, they actually did that -- a sick child was examined, diagnosed and the physician prescribed a treatment.

The Duke Area Health Education Center has launched a new tool to bridge the communication gap between health care providers and Spanish-speaking patients.  Polyglot Med Spanish, now available on iTunes for free download, is a simple-to-use app that offers immediate audio translation of more than 3,000 common words, phrases and assessment questions from English to Spanish and Spanish to English.

A Review of the Evidence from Prospective Evaluation Studies in the United States.

Abundant research comparing nations, states and regions within the US, and specific systems of care has shown that health systems built on a solid foundation of primary care deliver more effective, efficient and equitable care than do systems that fail to invest adequately in primary care.1,2 However, some policy analysts have questioned whether these largely cross-sectional, observational studies are adequate for making inferences about whether implementing major policy interventions to strengthen primary care as part of health reform would in the relatively short term “bend the cost curve” at the same time as improving quality of care and patient outcomes.

Visits to a hospital emergency department were cut by 55% when a medical home model was used to coordinate care for chronically ill children, study data showed. The model used by the University of California, Los Angeles, conformed to AAP guidelines and featured a one-hour intake appointment and 40-minute follow-up visits, a bilingual liaison for families, and a binder to help families store their child's medical records in a single place. 

MAINTAIN is a patience assistance program that can help eligible people in financial need continue to get their Pfizer medicines if they are unemployed and do not have prescription coverage. The MAINTAIN program has been extended through December 2010.

Each month, Family Voices- New Jersey, an advocacy and support service for families with children who have special healthcare needs, receives about 2,000 calls and e-mails for assistance in navigating the healthcare and insurance system and other support.

An E-newsletter dedicated to providing medical home information and resources for children with special needs from National AAP.

Access to care for New Jersey's children with Medicaid is a major battle because nationally low reimbursement rates for pediatric specialists have caused the specialists to either ration services or totally refuse to provide care. This issue of access has been a problem for many years but has recently been exacerbated by rising malpractice rates and cost of living while Medicaid reimbursement rates remain low.

Pediatric medical homes significantly improve the level and coordination of care, according to results of a three-year survey of 10 practices in New Hampshire and Vermont. Parents participating in the survey said their children had fewer hospitalizations and school absences. Parents also were more likely to have a written health care plan when their child had a medical home to coordinate care.