Before a health check can occur, patients need to be identified and invited in for the health check. This section focuses on patient identification.
It is likely that within your practice site, you may be able to readilt identify many of the patients with developmental disabilities (DD). This is excellent! There does remain a good chance, however, that there could be patients who are missed because they are lesser known or newer to you, or have a DD that is not readily identifiable. Further, depending on terminology and disease codes used, there could be variation among practitioners in how the DD is recorded, which could pose some challenges for a streamlined identification process.
Screening for DD in Adults
This tool grew out of our implementation work, as we learned that there were many patients who functional presentation suggested the possibillity of a DD - or other. This quick-to-use guide includes clinical signs and symptoms as well as interview questions you could ask a patient. It is meant to be a quick and simple screening tool that can help you to determine whether you wish to include a patient in a health check invite, and/or refer them on for a psychological assessment to determine is they have a DD. Note: this is NOT a diagnostic tool.
EMR Keyword Search Strategies
This handout includes suggested terms for keyword searches.
Searching and Assigning by ICD Codes
This handout includes suggested searches and data harmonization through ICD-9 disease registry codes
Identifying Patients with DD - Tracking
A sample template
Creating a Patient Cohort
Now that patients have been identified, we suggest that a disease registry or patient cohort is created.
