On Tuesday, March 12th, 2024, the Institute for Exceptional Care proudly announced the launch of their National Roadmap for Disability-Inclusive Healthcare!
Approximately 60% of U.S. physicians say they don’t have the training and skills to properly care for people with disabilities. This is especially true for clinicians – individuals such as doctors, nurses, and dentists – who treat people with IDD (IDD includes people with conditions such as autism, Down syndrome, intellectual disability, and more).
The National Roadmap seeks to:
- Give clinicians (such as doctors, nurses, and dentists) the skills and confidence to care for people with IDD
- Help clinician offices to be welcoming and accessible for people with IDD
- Offer clinicians a place to learn about caring for people with IDD
- Make sure that schools and other places that teach new clinicians have classes about caring for people with IDD
- Make sure the rules and guidelines for how clinicians do their jobs include how to best care for people with IDD
The National Roadmap for Disability-Inclusive Healthcare (the Roadmap) is a plan created for clinicians to give the best healthcare possible to people with intellectual and/or developmental disabilities (IDD). It provides clear goals and commonsense actions that different groups can take to inspire change among both practicing clinicians and clinicians-in-training.
Put together by the Action to Build Clinical Confidence and Culture (ABC3) Coalition, a diverse coalition made up of people with IDD, care partners/caregivers, clinicians, and other healthcare leaders, all passionate about creating safer and better healthcare for people with IDD, The National Roadmap for Disability-Inclusive Healthcare was developed because we all deserve the best possible healthcare.
Inadequate training, lack of proper equipment, and outdated assumptions all contribute to healthcare disparities for people with IDD, who often face barriers to receiving even basic care.
Reasons that health care providers lack the skills and confidence to care for patients with IDD include:
- Medical students spend an average of just 11 minutes learning about IDD.
- Misconceptions exist about how disability affects the length and quality of life for people with IDD.
- Successfully serving people with IDD may mean using some tools and equipment that are not yet the standard for healthcare offices.
- Clinicians may not know where to go to get the training and support they are seeking.
- Clinicians may not know how to correctly charge insurance companies, so they can pay for any extra costs. For example, an appointment for a person with IDD can take extra time, which costs more.
The Roadmap tackles all of these challenges head-on because everyone deserves high-quality care. It illustrates the transformative journey a clinician may take from limited IDD understanding to clinician readiness, identifying key factors that foster motivation for equitable care.
Making Disability a Priority in Health Equity: How Do We Accelerate Change?
Last year, Dr. Mai Pham joined us for a Power is a Social Determinant of Health webinar session on “Making Disability a Priority in Health Equity: How Do We Accelerate Change?”. In her webinar, Dr. Pham shared all the ways that the Institute for Exceptional Care is working to make healthcare better and safer for people with IDD, so they and their families can lead their best lives.
We are so excited to celebrate the launch of the Roadmap with IEC, and hope that this is a transformative step forward toward equitable, high-quality, dignified healthcare for people with IDD!
Learn More About the Roadmap
Join IEC’S March 25th, 2024 Webinar
You’re invited to learn more about the National Roadmap for Disability-Inclusive Healthcare from the healthcare leaders and self-advocates who developed it.
Join us for a virtual panel discussion on Monday, March 25 at 10:30 am Eastern Time. The webinar will share more about the current state of healthcare for people with IDD and will discuss how the Roadmap can be used as a tool for action.
Speakers include:
- BJ Stasio, self-advocate
- Dr. Craig Escudé, President, IntellectAbility
- Dr. Meelin Dian Chin Kit-Wells, President-elect, American Academy of Developmental Medicine and Dentistry
- Lauren Erickson, Director of Policy and Programs, IEC
- Dr. Mai Pham, President and CEO, IEC
We hope you can join us on March 25 at 10:30 am Eastern Time! If you can’t watch the webinar live, we will be sharing a recording later this month.
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