A Health Podyssey

How do you take a good idea — like screening children to see if they're on a healthy developmental trajectory — and get that idea adopted by thousands of small separate pediatric practices spread across a state or the entire country?The answer is collaboration and leadership.Vermont Child Health Improvement Program (VCHIP) is a pediatric program run by the University of Vermont to help pediatric providers, payers, and policy makers navigate the complex health care ecosystem. It’s also the latest subject for Health Affairs’ Leading to Health Series.Leading to Health focuses on transforming health systems and is published with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.In this episode, Health Affairs Editor-in-Chief Alan Weil interviews journalist and Leading to Health author Rebecca Gale on what gives VCHIP a programmatic edge in implementing new health care programs — and how other states can consider and benefit from this approach.Rebecca Gale is an award-winning journalist whose work has appeared in Health Affairs, The Washington Post, Slate, and The New York Times.

Tragically, motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of adolescent mortality and injury in the United States with new, inexperienced drivers at particular risk. The risk is under-recognized in health care. One way forward could be virtual driving simulations.Recently, the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, through its spun out business Diagnostic Driving, partnered with the state of Ohio to assess a virtual driving simulation in driver education courses. Initial findings were recently published in the October 2020 edition of Health Affairs.At this time, the partnership’s work is informing policy changes around integrating the virtual driving assessment system into licensing and driver training with the aim of reducing crashes in the first months of independent driving. The system can be developed to identify deficits in safety-critical skills that lead to crashes in new drivers and to address challenges that the COVID-19 pandemic has introduced to driver testing and training. Co-authors Dr. Flaura Winston and Dr. Elizabeth Walshe from the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia sit down with Health Affairs Editor-in-Chief Alan Weil to discuss their research.