Indiana Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics

Advocacy: 2022 marked a major advancement for the Chapter's advocacy efforts because for the first time inaap was able to proactively approach lawmakers with an idea for a bill and then successfully shepherd that bill through the legislative process to the governor's desk. Working with the Indiana department of health, Indiana acog, and the Indiana Academy of family physicians, inaap championed a positive change for newborns in Indiana. the goal of hb 1254 was to change the way Indiana's newborn screening requirements were reviewed and amended. Prior to the bill, it was up to indianas legislators to decide what was or was not included as part of screening newborns in the state. Every disease or change to the screening has to be individually legislated. Hb 1254 handed over power to review and amend the newborn screen from legislators to Indiana's advisory committee on genetics and genomics which is made up of medical experts. Thanks to hb 1254, that committee now has the power to review the newborn screen every year and make changes based on best practices. Inaap was also successful in advocating to lower the threshold of blood lead level to trigger treatment and remediation, and championed the introduction of universal lead screening for a period of three years so that Indiana can better understand where high lead levels might be concentrated in Indiana. Finally, inaap worked with the aclu to successfully advocate for a veto of a bill that would ban transgender children from participating in sports. Membership: inaap employed several different recruitment strategies in 2022. the Chapter's first goal is always to demonstrate value, and that is done through a monthly digital newsletter that is distributed to all members and highlights recent successes, upcoming events, advocacy updates, and information about the chapters programs. Inaap also aims to provide a wide variety of events throughout the year. For example, in december 2022 the Chapter held a "legislative preview event" where members were invited to come and meet lawmakers and hear what to expect during the upcoming legislative session (which kicks off in early january in Indiana). Inaap has also made an effort to focus on retaining residents and showing trainees why they should remain members once they are fellows. To accomplish that goal, Chapter leaders meet with incoming interns during their orientation to provide an overview of the Chapter and welcome them to the pediatric community. Additionally, inaap's executive director meets with residents once a month in indianapolis to discuss inaap's work, how they can get involved, and why it is important to be an engaged pediatric advocate. In 2022 inaap's membership committee also took on the task of identifying all pediatricians in the state who were members of aap but not members of inaap. They then contacted those individuals to ask what the Chapter could do to earn their membership. Programs: in Indiana the reach out and read program is housed under inaap, and 2022 marked a major expansion for the program. Inaap was able to secure 280,000 from Indiana's family and social services administration to support the program. This support allowed the Chapter to hire a new program coordinator, expand the program to 15 new clinics (bringing the total amount of clinics in the state to 123 in 38 different counties), and conduct site quality visits and trainings. Over the course of 2022, those clinics distributed 176,716 high quality and developmentally appropriate books to children and their families. Inaap has also made a concerted effort to ensure that the state's reach out and read clinics are focused on serving Indiana's most vulnerable populations. 73% of Hoosier children taking part in the program received public insurance or were uninsured. Further, 47% were white/caucasian, 24% were black/african American, 18% were hispanic/latino, 2% were asian, and the remaining 9% were multiple ethnicities. the fidelity of Indiana's reach out and read program is also critically important, and inaap staff have been tasked with doing regular training throughout the state. In 2022, staff were able to conduct 71 total trainings and were able to train 566 providers on the reach out and read model. of those trained, 214 were mds, 49 were dos, 31 were pediatric residents, 83 were apns, 30 were pas, 96 were rns, 12 were mas, the rest were other pediatric clinic support staff. Education: inaap provided numerous educational opportunities to its members through 2022, both virtual and in-person formats. the biggest educational event of the year was inaap's pediatric cme conference which was held in- person on july 15th in columbus Indiana. Unlike many other chapters in the country who have had their own conference for decades, inaap's 2022 event was only the 2nd conference ever hosted by the Chapter. the first conference in 2019 was a success, but both 2020 and 2021 had to be cancelled due to the covid-19 pandemic. the conference offered 7 hours of cme and 6 points of moc credit along with a wide range of speakers on various pediatric topics. Inaap also offered a "lunchtime webinar series" that provided cme opportunities to its members. the events in the webinar series aimed to last 45 minutes to an hour, and were scheduled from 12:00 pm to 1:00 pm with the idea that members could tune in while having lunch if it was a topic of interest. Inaap aimed to tie the content of each webinar to hot topics that were taking place at the time. For example, inaap hosted a primer on lead screening when it was announced that a new law would require universal lead screening in Indiana. Inaap also hosted a primer on sports physicals in late march just before the window for physicals opened on april 1. Inaap hosted a total of 9 talks as part of the series serving just over 400 pediatricians throughout the year. Innovation: the most exciting thing taken on by inaap in 2022 was the creation of a new program focused on pediatric mental health. Thanks to a grant of 220,000 from Indiana's division of mental health and addiction, inaap was able to create the care program which aims to connect children and families in need of mental health services to existing resources in the state. Though some resources like Indiana 211 already existed to try and connect families with basic information on available resources, there were no family-facing services dedicated to pediatric mental health working directly with families on an ongoing basis to navigate barriers. Inaap's care program was formed to help fill that need. the care program has aimed to set itself apart not only by providing families with information about available mental health providers and resources in their area, but also by maintaining contact with those families to find out what ongoing barriers might be preventing their access to care, and to provide support and assistance in removing those barriers. Even further, the care program follows up with each family's primary care provider to let the provider know what resources the family has been connected to and whether they are receiving treatment or other services. Finally, navigators with the care program conduct follow-up interviews with participating families to determine whether the family has been able to receive services, whether they are happy with those services, or alternatively what ultimately prevented the family from moving forward with services.