Child Health Improvement through Computer Automation (CHICA) System

CHICA Initiatives

• CHICA Child Neurology
  Utilizing computer-based clinical decision support in clinical care can help neurologists stay abreast of the latest advancements. Implementing SMART on FHIR to integrate into the Cerner and EPIC EMRs permits CHICA Child Neurology to address the 21 potential measures proposed by the American Academy of Neurology Institute and assist providers in adhering to these recommendations.
• Care Transition Study
  Starting at age 14, adolescents should begin becoming familiar with managing their health care process. The Transition Readiness Assessment Questionnaire (TRAQ) implemented through CHICA focuses on meeting the youth-to-adult transition needs of adolescents by identifying areas that need further intervention. These areas are flagged for the physician to discuss with the family and evaluated over the year to determine if patient experience has changed.
• Sudden Unexplained Death in Epilepsy Module

  Sudden Unexplained Death in Epilepsy (SUDEP) is the most common epilepsy-related cause of death. It often refers to death of a mostly healthy person with epilepsy who dies unexpectedly and with no clear reason. CHICA evaluates if a patient has had a seizure previously and helps the physician monitor medical adherence and if the patient has been seen by a neurologist.

• CHICA/Commercial Electronic Medical Record Integration
  At patient registration, CHICA receives demographics, vital signs and medical history data via HL7v2 messages from the practice’s electronic medical record. The clinician can interact with the CHICA web-based interface through a link within the electronic medical record. CHICA automatically creates a plain text note that can be inserted into the medical record when the clinician submits the CHICA electronic physician worksheet.
• Quality Measures and Payor Reimbursement for CHICA Usage
  CHICA collects a rich set of clinical data from both patients and providers. Because it implements evidence-based guidelines from the American Academy of Pediatrics and United States Preventative Services Task Force, it collects data for quality measures that go way beyond the Healthcare Effectiveness Data Information Set (HEDIS). CHICA is actively working with hospital systems and payors to use the rich data collected by CHICA to streamline the meaningful use and quality measure reporting for hospital systems that use CHICA.
• Cloud Based CHICA
  As commoditized hardware infrastructure becomes more mature, cost effective and secure, developers are exploring the technical challenges of moving the CHICA software from a server hosted internally within a hospital system to servers hosted on commercial commoditized hardware. A functional prototype of CHICA is running on Amazon Web Service and developers are exploring the necessary measures to ensure protected health information is secure and HIPAA regulations are met.
• CHICA for Specialty Clinics
  CHICA has been used exclusively in general pediatrics clinics but developers are working to retool the system for use in subspecialty clinics also. With funding from a National Institutes of Health grant, developers have created a program for pediatric gastroenterology that will serve as a model for future development of CHICA subspecialty platforms.
• CHICA Anxiety Study
  CHICA has been used exclusively in general pediatrics clinics but developers are working to retool the system for use in subspecialty clinics also. With funding from a National Institutes of Health grant, developers have created a program for pediatric gastroenterology that will serve as a model for future development of CHICA subspecialty platforms.
• CHICA Medical Legal Partnership Study
  The CHICA Medical Legal Partnership study seeks to address upstream non-medical determinants of health to mitigate downstream health disparities by: (1) screening children for unmet social and legal needs that may adversely impact their families’ health; (2) alerting physicians to those needs; and (3) generating informational handouts and social work/legal referrals as needed. Funded by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the study examines the impact of the medical legal partnership module on the identification and mitigation of unmet health-harming legal needs, evaluates physician and patient/caregiver satisfaction with the module and evaluates the impact of the module on patient health care utilization.
• Adolescent Module
  The Bright Futures guidelines from the American Academy of Pediatrics includes extensive guidance on the primary care screening and preventive care of teenagers. However, primary care physicians are often uncomfortable or unfamiliar with these recommendations. CHICA Adolescent is a module built on Bright Futures and is being studied in a randomized controlled trial involving primary care pediatricians and adolescence specialists.
• Constipation Module
  Constipation is a common reason for referral to pediatric gastroenterology subspecialists. With funding from the National Institutes of Health, the CHICA Constipation module is designed to help primary care pediatricians with the management of challenging cases of constipation to see if it will reduce the need for expensive subspecialty services.
• Diabetes Screening Modules
  With the recent dramatic increase in childhood obesity, the incidences of diabetes has also risen dramatically. Although the American Diabetic Association has published guidelines on how to screen for this condition, most general pediatricians are not following the recommendations. The CHICA Diabetes modules identify overweight and obese children and screens for risk factors that would indicate the need for diabetes screening. CHICA aids the pediatrician in following these screening recommendations. Researchers are studying whether screening is improved with the introduction of this CHICA module.
• Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) Vaccination Module
  The HPV vaccine is recommended for all young men and women in their early teens, and although it is safe and effective, vaccination rates are lower than they should be. Research suggests that a parent’s decision to vaccinate or not is strongly driven by the advice provided by their physicians. Researchers are studying whether prompts from CHICA, suggesting specific wording, can increase vaccine uptake. A related study is examining whether an educational video shown on a tablet triggered by CHICA can increase HPV vaccine rates.
• Night Waking Module
  One of the most common challenges young parents face is nighttime awakening of a baby who is hard to get back to sleep. Pediatricians commonly counsel on this topic. In the CHICA Night Waking module, researchers are studying how physicians typically counsel families and optimal ways to screen automatically for this problem.
• Obstructive Sleep Apnea Module
  Obstructive sleep apnea is a common, potentially dangerous, and under recognized problem in pediatrics that usually presents with snoring. Although the American Academy of Pediatrics has published evidence-based screening guidelines, most pediatricians are not familiar with them. Pilot work with the obstructive sleep apnea module found that about 9 percent of children snore, and about 40 percent of snoring children are at risk for sleep apnea. However, only a fraction of these children are referred for evaluation, and the likelihood of evaluation depends heavily on which physician the child sees. The Obstructive sleep apnea module is intended to automate the screening process and help physicians with referral of children who need to undergo sleep studies.