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Healthy Eating and Kids: A Q&A With a Pediatrics Registered Dietitian

Healthy Eating and Kids: A Q&A With a Pediatrics Registered Dietitian

HealthyWeekBETHESDA, MD – To celebrate today’s Tasty Tuesday for Every Kid Healthy Week, we interviewed a pediatric Registered Dietitian. Carol
Henderson,
a member of Econometrica’s Health Group, is a pediatrics Registered Dietitian who has worked with children and teens and their families for dozens of years. In particular, she worked with infants and children with feeding and growth issues and children diagnosed with chronic conditions and diseases, such as cystic fibrosis, diabetes, juvenile arthritis, gastrointestinal disorders, and severe food allergies.

Interviewer: I wonder if you could tell us a little bit about what it is like working as a pediatric dietitian and what you want to accomplish when working with children and their families?

Carol: The primary goal when working as a dietitian with pediatric patients who are sick is to ensure adequate, proportional growth throughout childhood. Some children need to grow bigger and become stronger and some need to minimize their growth over time. Pediatric dietitians also evaluate a child’s activity level, daily schedule, parent/caregiver roles, timing of meals and mealtime environment, food availability, meal preparation, and sleep patterns to gauge an individual’s nutritional needs. These actions align with each of the daily themes we are celebrating during Every Kid Healthy Week:

  • Mindfulness Monday. Preparing healthy meals for a family is an investment that not only requires time, commitment, but also a state of mindfulness—a sense of calm that is needed to prepare meals, even during chaotic family times. Taking time out once a week to inventory foods on hand and create a shopping list may make it easier to put meals on the table.
  • Tasty Tuesday. Today, which is Nutrition and Healthy Eating day, is a good time to assess the nutritional quality of the snacks your child/children are eating and how often they snack throughout the day. It is important to develop healthy feeding habits (have set times for meal and snack intervals—especially for young children) so they can achieve their nutritional intake goals every day.
  • Earth Day Wellness Wednesday. Have you every quizzed your child to see where they think different food ingredients come from? This activity can turn into a project. You can select an ingredient in a dish you are preparing and ask if it comes from an animal, plant, or is it a mineral and go from there!
  • Thoughtful Thursday. Kids react to their environment and learn from others. Therefore, creating a pleasant environment where your child can sit and eat meals at regular intervals and interact with other family members contributes to their social and physical well-being.
  • Fitness Friday. Kids wiggle, squirm, run, and love to play—all things that contribute to their development. It is your job as parents/caregivers to find outlets for children to keep them active.

Interviewer: How did you pick dietetics as a profession?

Carol: Dietetics found me! I was going to become a high school chemistry teacher. In college, I conducted my junior year teaching practicum in a local high school. A small group of students in one chemistry class thought it would be hilarious to capitalize on my untested teaching skills, so they combined all the reagents (acids and bases) that lined the lab benches and blew up the chem lab. Everyone evacuated safely and I stood in the middle of the chem lab while the sprinklers were raining down on me and said, “I don’t ever want to be a chemistry teacher!” Because chemistry is such an integral part of food science and dietetics, I found a new calling.

Interviewer: There are so many different paths you could have undertaken with a dietetics degree, why pediatrics?

Carol: My oldest sister had just completed medical school and she received her residency “match” at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital. At the same time, I completed my Dietetic Internship at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, so we moved in together. A dietitian position opened at Cincinnati Children’s and I became one of two dietitians for a 750-bed hospital. That would not happen today. Nowadays, a children’s hospital of the same size would have more than 35 dietetic staff members. It has been a great blessing to have worked with children, teens, and their families as a pediatric dietitian and patient advocate for many decades.

Interviewer: Carol, do you have any parting thoughts you would like to share today?

Carol: The greatest gift I have received from working as a pediatric dietitian is the importance of play. Play consumes all children. I think as adults we should consume more play in our lives!

Interview edited for length and clarity. Thanks to Emma Wellington for conducting this interview.

About Econometrica:

Founded in 1998, Econometrica is a research and management organization in Bethesda, MD, established to provide public- and private-sector clients with customized program support services. Econometrica works with multiple agencies to provide high-quality, cost-effective analyses, modeling, and economic evaluations. The company consistently receives exceptional scores from its clients and believes in three principles: technical capabilities, happy customers, and business development.

 

Preparing healthy meals for a family is an investment that not only requires time, commitment, but also a state of mindfulness—a sense of calm that is needed to prepare meals, even during chaotic family times.

Press Contact

Jonathan Fusfield

Econometrica Launches New Course

Econometrica Launches New Course

WashHandsBETHESDA, MD – Econometrica launched a  new course about handwashing during the COVID-19 pandemic. Washing your hands regularly and thoroughly is the best thing, aside from social distancing, that you can do to protect yourself and your community from the spread of COVID-19. Adapted from guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the new course  will focus on when and how you should wash your hands to stay healthy – a simple task, yet often misunderstood and performed poorly.

The new course is available at https://econometricainc.com/training/.

About Econometrica:

Founded in 1998, Econometrica is a research and management organization in Bethesda, MD, established to provide public- and private-sector clients with customized program support services. Econometrica works with multiple agencies to provide high-quality, cost-effective analyses, modeling, and economic evaluations. The company consistently receives exceptional scores from its clients and believes in three principles: technical capabilities, happy customers, and business development.

Washing your hands regularly and thoroughly is the best thing, aside from social distancing.

Press Contact

Jonathan Fusfield

Looking Ahead in Quality Improvement

Looking Ahead in Quality Improvement

EconometricaOfficeBETHESDA, MD – In February, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) sponsored the CMS Quality Conference, an annual meeting of leaders and stakeholders dedicated to improving the quality, safety, and value of modern healthcare. Econometrica employees participated in this 3-day conference, which gathers the brightest in the field (including Government employees, providers, researchers, policymakers, professional society members, and others) to discuss several existing and future quality improvement initiatives. As the Affordable Care Act, the legislation that created many of these quality programs, celebrated its 10-year anniversary this March, the conference emphasized current and upcoming quality improvement programs. Econometrica has engaged with many of these models in the past; in this article, we highlight and look ahead to several key innovations discussed at the conference.

The Quality Payment Program (QPP) was the focus of many conference sessions. Created under the Medicare Access and Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2015, the QPP aims to improve care and reduce costs while also easing provider burden. Clinicians may choose to participate via two tracks: the Merit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS), or Advanced Alternative Payment Models (APM). Through MIPS, clinicians are reimbursed based on quality of care as measured by performance in four domains: quality, cost, improvement activities, and promoting interoperability. Scores on measures in these domains are aggregated into a final score that determines a payment adjustment. Clinicians may also receive incentive payments for participating in an Advanced APM. APMs are payment frameworks that offer incentive payments for the provision of high-quality, cost-efficient care. Under the QPP’s Advanced APM option, a 5-percent incentive is available for clinicians who meet threshold levels of payments or patients through an Advanced APM.
Conference sessions highlighted CMS’ plans for implementation of the new MIPS Value Pathways (MVP) framework for participation in QPP beginning in the 2021 performance period. The goal of MVPs is to simplify and lower reporting burden. MVPs allow clinicians to report on measures and activities that are specialty- or practice-specific with a base of interoperability measures and population health measures derived from administrative claims data.

Other innovative models highlighted at the conference include the Integrated Care for Kids model and the Maternal Opioid Misuse model. The Integrated Care for Kids model aims to address challenges in children’s health through early identification and treatment of health issues and improved quality of care for children. It promotes care coordination across providers and creates State-specific APMs to enhance payment for quality of care and outcomes. Model participants include Lead Organizations, which are made up of community partners; State Medicaid Agencies; and Partnership Councils. The Maternal Opioid Misuse model is one of CMS’ models designed to respond to the opioid crisis by targeting the lack of coordination of care for pregnant and postpartum patients with Opioid Use Disorder. It further looks to increase access to necessary services and the availability of care providers for pregnant and postpartum women with Opioid Use Disorder.

Econometrica is excited to be part of such a vibrant conversation about the future of quality improvement! We look forward to continuing to work with CMS and other leaders in the field to drive healthcare innovations that promote the provision of high-quality care at efficient cost.

About Econometrica:

Founded in 1998, Econometrica is a research and management organization in Bethesda, MD, established to provide public- and private-sector clients with customized program support services. Econometrica works with multiple agencies to provide high-quality, cost-effective analyses, modeling, and economic evaluations. The company consistently receives exceptional scores from its clients and believes in three principles: technical capabilities, happy customers, and business development.

Econometrica is excited to be part of such a vibrant conversation about the future of quality improvement! We look forward to continuing to work with CMS and other leaders in the field to drive healthcare innovations that promote the provision of high-quality care at efficient cost.

Press Contact

Jonathan Fusfield

Econometrica Maintains Continued Operations During Coronavirus Pandemic

Econometrica Maintains Continued Operations During Coronavirus Pandemic

COVID 1BETHESDA, MD – On March 13, President Trump declared a national emergency in response to the outbreak of coronavirus (COVID-19) nationwide. Econometrica, Inc., continues to monitor developments related to the coronavirus pandemic to ensure the safety of our staff, their families, and communities. We also are taking steps toward meeting our commitments to clients and partners and continue to provide the high-quality and timely services expected from Econometrica.

The following summarizes steps we have taken to date:

  • Econometrica has mandated that all employees work full time from home for the foreseeable future. We are complying with guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to halt gatherings of more than 50 people and to encourage social distancing.
  • Employees working remotely have full access, using secure configurations, to Econometrica’s network resources, applications, and support, including communication tools to support telework. No project work will be interrupted by this move to a remote setup.
  • Project teams in our Health, Housing and Community Development, General Services, Capital Markets, and Data Analytics groups are moving toward scheduling all meetings virtually and limiting travel. All business travel is temporarily suspended during this time.
  • Staff members who work onsite at our clients’ offices continue to report to their respective agencies unless directed otherwise. We have been in contact with each client to develop contingency plans to address remote work should access to the client site is limited or an employee shows symptoms of COVID-19.
  • We have regularly communicated prevention strategies and tips from CDC and the American Red Cross for keeping homes and workplaces safe. Everyone has been advised to call their doctors and follow CDC recommendations for self-quarantine should they show any symptoms related to COVID-19.

Coronavirus infections increase at an exponential rate, with symptoms including fever, cough, and shortness of breath. Social distancing seems to be effective in reducing the spread, and Econometrica wants its employees to feel safe and remain healthy. As this outbreak unfolds, Econometrica will continue to provide its high-quality services with no reduction in availability or commitment.

About Econometrica:

Founded in 1998, Econometrica is a research and management organization in Bethesda, MD, established to provide public- and private-sector clients with customized program support services. Econometrica works with multiple agencies to provide high-quality, cost-effective analyses, modeling, and economic evaluations. The company consistently receives exceptional scores from its clients and believes in three principles: technical capabilities, happy customers, and business development.

Coronavirus infections increase at an exponential rate, with symptoms including fever, cough, and shortness of breath. Social distancing seems to be effective in reducing the spread, and Econometrica wants its employees to feel safe and remain healthy.

Press Contact

Jonathan Fusfield

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Econometrica Selected by AHRQ to Support PBRN Initiative

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Econometrica partners with the Preventive Cardiovascular Nurses Association (PCNA): Health Equity Self-Assessment Tool

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