| Heartland Pediatric Feeding Disorder Services | |
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To develop a program that provides in-home services for children with chronic feeding issues.
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Dreamer:
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Sean Casey
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Dream Location:
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Montezuma,
IA
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Contest:
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Innovation Gateway 2012
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Dream Rank:
2
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Number of Votes:
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1403
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What the Heartland Pediatric Feeding Disorders Services (HPFDS) does:
The mission of the HPFDS is dedicated to meeting the unique needs of children with feeding problems through the use of comprehensive and state-of-the-art behavioral assessments and treatment methodologies to ensure the provision of the most innovative and appropriate treatment strategies.
We provide behavioral evaluations and implement treatment recommendations for families with children who engage in chronic food refusal. We have two main services: an in-home outpatient service and an intensive in-home feeding disorder program.
The outpatient service is designed for initial evaluations, follow-up evaluations and is a less intensive option (bi-weekly to monthly appointments) for children with less severe feeding issues (e.g., picky eating). Typically, a child not making progress with this approach would be referred to the intensive service.
The intensive service would serve children with more chronic needs or who failed to make progress in the outpatient service. This service entails daily services (every meal of every day for approximately 2-3 weeks) until the child is meeting 100% of their nutritional needs during set mealtimes.
Why is HPFDS applying?
Children with chronic feeding issues can have a negative impact on their growth. If growth is significantly impacted, a diagnosis of Failure-to-Thrive (FTT) can result. FTT has several prominent features, however among the most important is stunted brain growth. Unfortunately, the window in which to treat feeding and growth issues is a small one as the brain develops most rapidly during the first 3 years of life (see figure below). Treatment employed after this window can still result in the child having developmental delays, therefore it is critical for children to receive services as quickly as possible.
Two major behavioral feeding services exist regionally (i.e., Munroe Meyer Institute in Omaha and the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics in Iowa City). Both services are hospital-based Day Treatment programs that would require families who reside in Central Iowa to commute daily 1-3 hours, respectively. Services provided by these programs, while excellent, are not delivered in family's homes. Conversely, HPFDS services would be provided directly in family's homes offering a specific advantage for families in Central Iowa. The Des Moines-Newton-Pella region is the 58th largest metropolitan area (census of nearly 640,000), part of which entails the Innovation Gateway (census of over 240,000). It is also estimated that that 6.5-7.5% of the population in this region is under the age of 5 (a typical age for a child with feeding problems) and conservative estimates of feeding disorders are around 3%. Taken together this would translate into a little more than 400-1,400 children who could benefit from services provided by the HPFDS. At full capacity the population would still be underserved with additional growth and expansion opportunities east of the region. Thus, the population bases would permit the program to be solvent considering that at maximum capacity the HPFDS would be able to serve about 60-65 a year across both services (serving approximately 15% and 5% of the population children with feeding concerns).
Controlled growth and the development an in-patient option to permit families who are outside of this region to stay (rather than commute) to access services would be part of the future plans of the HPFDS.
We are applying to this competition for 2 main reasons: 1) to potentially obtain funds for our initial marketing efforts (i.e., to get the initial "word out"), and 2) the timing of this competition is was closely associated with our launch on July 20th, 2012 and the opportunity to share our message in this competition would also benefit the program. Our hope is to reach the be in the top 5 to be able to formally present our vision to the juding committee.
How HPFDS would use the money:
We would use the the majority of the funds specifically for marketing purposes (e.g., brochures, print advertising, billboard rental, radio) and branding (e.g., website development). We believe that an initial marketing campaign would be the best means to launch this program. $5,000 will go a long way in letting families know that this service exists and can help with their child's feeding issues. Moreover, not only does such a service exist, this service is unique in that it would come to them in their own homes where the feeding issues occur on a daily basis! This is unique to most providers around the country!
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