AHRQ Innovations Exchange | Health Care Provider Training on Weight Management for Adolescents Promotes Body Mass Index Documentation and Referrals to Health and Fitness Classes

Health Care Provider Training on Weight Management for Adolescents Promotes Body Mass Index Documentation and Referrals to Health and Fitness Classes

Summary

The Santa Clara Family Health Plan provides comprehensive health care benefits to a diverse population of low-income families. The plan developed a quality improvement project to encourage health care practitioners to document body mass index and provide weight management consultation and referral to obese adolescents during well visits. The project included weight management training for the practitioners and free health and fitness programs for adolescents and their families. Although the project was successful in increasing the BMI documentation rate from 23.4 percent in 2007 to 33.2 percent in 2008, this increase was well below the project goal and benchmark of 52 percent. A slight increase, from 33.6 percent in 2007 to 35.5 percent in 2008, in the practitioner documentation rate of counseling/referral for nutrition, physical activity, weight management and/or healthy lifestyles brought the project closer to the benchmark of 36 percent for this intervention.

Developing Organizations

Santa Clara Family Health Plan
Santa Clara Family Health Plan, Santa Clara, CA

FULL-TEXT:
AHRQ Innovations Exchange | Health Care Provider Training on Weight Management for Adolescents Promotes Body Mass Index Documentation and Referrals to Health and Fitness Classes