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Most children who are eligible for early intervention (EI) services do not receive them due to a variety of logistical barriers and parent beliefs or concerns.
Staff at an academic hospital–affiliated primary care practice undertook a quality-improvement (QI) project with the goal of increasing the rate of timely EI evaluation completion after referral (within 120 days) from a baseline of ≈50% to 70%. First, they identified barriers to completing EI evaluations, which included the clinic not uniformly promoting EI, lack of a single route for referring patients to EI, and lack of a referral tracking system. They then designed a new process with a focus on patient and provider activation; streamlining referrals within the electronic medical re…