Kids’ program teams hospital with schools
Kids’ program teams hospital with schools
Reaches 8,500 kids a week; $1 now saves $7 later
As a private, not-for-profit hospital, Washing-ton Regional Medical Center (WRMC) in Fayetteville, AR, gives back a portion of its annual income to the community. For the 294-bed hospital, giving back involves more than event sponsorships or screening programs. WRMC runs several women’s health clinics, a free outpatient clinic for those who cannot afford care, and an AIDS clinic.
The keystone of WRMC’s community projects, however, is Kids for Health. "It’s difficult to change behavior patterns in adults," notes Charles Wilson, EdD, director of education at WRMC, "but if you instill good habits in kids when they’re in elementary school, you can help them to be healthy for life."
As for return on investment, Wilson explains that studies estimate a $7 saving to the health care system for every $1 spent on prevention. For the participating school districts, the value is immediate in that Kids for Health fulfills their state mandate for health teaching in elementary schools.
The award-winning Kids for Health originated with Kandy Edmonson Johnson, RN, the program’s coordinator, and Connie Edmonston, who has since left her position with WRMC. "We surveyed every health curriculum we could get our hands on, and nothing was like what we wanted," Wilson recalls. That was about six years ago.
Realizing that adapting a copyrighted program would involve too many headaches, they created their own. "The advantage of developing our own is that we can revise it until it’s exactly as we want it. And we don’t have to get anybody’s permission to do so," he notes.
Johnson describes the reception of the 1994 three-school pilot as overwhelmingly positive. The kids loved it. Although school staffs complained that class schedules were already too full for the 30-minute health classes, their resistance faded quickly when they saw what WRMC could offer without touching their budgets.
Although parental opposition was another potential stumbling block, it became a non-issue as parents themselves learn from the health tips their kids bring home to post on the refrigerator. Since the district’s teachers are present the whole time a WRMC staff teacher conducts a lesson, parents are secure that the schools know exactly what their children are exposed to. While Wilson expected at least a few parental complaints, not one has surfaced since the program started. (See the sample health tip, p. 104.)
"The exhibitry makes points with the kids," Wilson notes. Using standard stethoscopes from the hospital, they listen to their own hearts. They study a human heart, brain, and lung. After seeing a lung diseased from cigarette smoking, one child described it to his father, a smoker. The man eventually kicked the habit. (For highlights of the educational content, see "Kids for Health at a Glance," p. 106.)
Quality controls help program fulfill goals
Like clinical practice guidelines, standardized classroom lessons have many benefits. Johnson explains that Kids for Health teachers actually memorize the lesson scripts. "If one teacher starts a sentence from a lesson plan in one classroom, you could hear the teacher next door complete the sentence," she says.
The uniformity fulfills several objectives:
1. Provides valid data for controlled studies of the program’s impact on children’s health knowledge.
2. Enables the public school staff to explain to parents what their children will study. The school personnel have complete confidence that classroom activities reflect printed lesson plans. Such assurances were critical in the early days of the program when parents occasionally called to ask what their children would be learning.
3. Makes lessons replicable with similar results.
Controlled studies conducted by WRMC show that Kids for Health results in a seven- to 11-fold increase in health knowledge. "Retention rates are good," adds Johnson. "Compared to other health teaching, this one does more than fulfill the letter of the requirements of the state laws," she says. In fact, Kids for Health achieves a 51% average increase in health knowledge per school. (For recent scores from the Fayetteville schools, see graph, above right.)
Kids for Health costs $63 per child per year. "Parents couldn’t buy that much prevention for that amount of money," Wilson notes. Annually, Kids for Health costs WRMC $500,000. "If we can prevent one disease process from developing in each school population a year, we will have saved that year’s program costs," Wilson notes.
On the strength of a solid track record and measurable results from the live program, WRMC is testing an interactive video version. The hospital wants to determine if a less expensive (costs under $1 per child) mode of delivery achieves similar results. Preliminary studies look promising with health knowledge increases of nearly 100%. (See graph on video pilot program, p. 105.)
While WRMC and the hospital auxiliary currently support Kids for Health, plans are on the drawing board to market it to other school systems. Actually, sales inquiries are coming in from other school districts and health programs.
To top off its success, Kids for Health won a 1999 NOVA award from the American Hospital Association. The NOVA award honors hospitals for innovative, collaborative projects designed to improve community health.
Subscribe Now for Access
You have reached your article limit for the month. We hope you found our articles both enjoyable and insightful. For information on new subscriptions, product trials, alternative billing arrangements or group and site discounts please call 800-688-2421. We look forward to having you as a long-term member of the Relias Media community.