Concussions, often resulting from sports injuries or accidents, can have long-lasting effects if not properly diagnosed and treated. It is estimated that 145,000 children are living with a traumatic brain injury, or TBI, and only 14.3% are receiving the medical and educational services needed to thrive.
Corewell Health Children’s in Southeast Michigan has teamed up with Corewell Health Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital to improve those odds for Michigan children.
Our initial task was to identify pilot sites and offer pediatric patients follow-up care post emergency discharge that resulted from any head injury. To address common barriers to follow-up care, we offered telehealth appointments through our Corewell Health Beaumont Troy Hospital Children's After-Hours clinic (for more info, check out this interview with Sarah Rauner, PNP-C).
This team was tasked with calling each patient within 24-48 hours post discharge and scheduling a virtual visio-vestibular appointment. If the patient required additional support or resources, this team would note their chart and route the patient to make an appointment with primary care, or in some cases the patient would return to the emergency room if symptoms had not subsided.
Our goal is to improve access to critical concussion follow-up care for all patients, including those with transportation challenges.
This was all possible through a grant from the Toyota’s Way Forward Fund, or TWFF, to improve TBI care. To further establish their footprint in Michigan, TWFF sponsored the 2024 Detroit Health Department’s Community Fair.
The community fair featured Matthew Denenberg, M.D., chief, Corewell Health Children’s in Southeast Michigan. He spoke to the hundreds of residents and community members at the fair about our partnership with TWFF and other children’s hospitals, and personally handed out gun locks to parents who said they knew someone with children who did not have their firearms properly stored.
This was an amazing partnership that will continue because TWFF recently awarded Corewell Health Children’s in Southeast Michigan an additional $525,000 grant to continue expanding this work.
We are so grateful to our partners and look forward to creating a model for all children’s hospitals to prevent, properly diagnose and treat pediatric injuries.