Improving Care Coordination and Service Linkages to Support Healthy Child Development: Early Lessons and Recommendations from a Five-State Consortium

This report summarizes early findings from the current Assuring Better Child Health and Development (ABCD III) learning collaborative of five states. Arkansas, Illinois, Minnesota, Oklahoma, and Oregon are testing models to strengthen linkages and care coordination between pediatric primary care providers and community-based providers of early intervention, mental health, public health, and early care and education services.  The states’ early experiences piloting communication tools, facilitating data sharing, implementing quality improvement processes, and involving families are relevant for efforts to engage multi-sector stakeholders to improve state policy, primary care practice, and population health.