Physician-Generated Advocacy Letters for Individualized Education Programs

Area of Science:

• Pediatric primary care
• Health-related social needs screening
• Educational advocacy

Background:

• Pediatricians play a crucial role in advocating for families needing special educational services.
• Advocacy often involves writing letters to schools to request individualized education program (IEP) evaluations or additional support.

Purpose of the Study:

• To assess the effectiveness of an electronic health record (EHR)-based tool for screening health-related social needs (HRSN) and generating IEP letters.
• To evaluate the impact of these IEP letters on school-initiated evaluations or services for children with unmet educational needs.

Main Methods:

• An EHR-based HRSN screening tool and referral model were implemented in three urban pediatric primary care sites.
• Caregivers of school-aged children who screened positive for unmet educational needs and received an IEP letter were surveyed.
• Survey data analyzed the rate of letter presentation to schools and subsequent school actions.

Main Results:

• 73.7% of caregivers presented the generated IEP letter to their child's school.
• Of those who presented the letter, 61.9% reported that the school initiated an evaluation or provided a new service.
• The process demonstrated a positive correlation between the letter and school-based interventions.

Conclusions:

• Integrating IEP letter templates into EHR systems facilitates timely social care interventions.
• This approach empowers families by providing a straightforward method to advocate for essential special education services.
• The findings support routine screening for educational needs and enhanced collaboration between healthcare providers and schools.