Massie Family Clinic
Promoting Accessibility To Healthcare
Improving health care experiences for neurodiverse children and their families.
Massie Family Clinic
Promoting Accessibility To Healthcare
The PATH Program (Promoting Accessibility To Healthcare) is a Children’s Miracle Network grant funded project aimed at improving health care experiences for neurodiverse children and their families. This program will develop and grow neuroinclusive patient-centered service lines in 2 piloted areas of UC Davis Health: Children’s Surgery Center and Glassrock Lab.
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Introduction to the Promoting Accessibility To Healthcare (PATH) Program
Patients with autism and other neurodevelopmental disabilities have unique health care needs. The Promoting Accessibility To Healthcare (PATH) Program at the UC Davis Children's Hospital and UC Davis MIND Institute is finding the best way to help autistic and neurodiverse patients have the best possible experience with hospital visits, surgery, and blood draws.
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PATH: Patient and family perspectives
Patients with autism and other neurodevelopmental disabilities have unique health care needs. The Promoting Accessibility To Healthcare (PATH) Program at the UC Davis Children's Hospital and UC Davis MIND Institute is finding the best way to help autistic and other neurodiverse patients have the best possible experience with hospital visits, surgery, and blood draws. This video tells you why that’s important. Neurodiverse patients and families share their experiences with health care and explain how to make a health visit better for everyone involved.
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Why did the PATH Program Start?
- Autistic individuals have 4x higher rate of unmet health care needs.
- Individuals with autism and intellectual disability have even higher unmet health care needs and poorer-quality care.
- Greater recognition of neurodiversity and evidence that appropriate, patient-centered interventions can decrease medical trauma and improve participation in healthcare.
- Better understanding of impact of repeated medical trauma on neurodiverse individuals.
- Neurodivergent individuals have higher health care utilization, but experience more unmet health care needs.
- Limited training about neurodiversity for many healthcare providers.
- Health care costs are more than 4 times higher for neurodiverse patients (Matin et al. 2022).
- Little training is provided for working with patients with intellectual disability or other neurodiverse conditions.
Karpur, et al. Health Disparities among Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders: Analysis of the National Survey of Children’s Health 2016. J Autism Dev Disord. 2019 Apr;49(4):1652-1664. doi: 10.1007/s10803-018-3862-9.
Forde, et al. Health Status of Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder. Rev J Autism Dev Disord (2021)
Menezes M, et al., Unmet health care needs and health care quality in youth with autism spectrum disorder with and without intellectual disability. Autism. 2021 Nov;25(8):2199-2208. doi: 10.1177/13623613211014721.
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The PATH Program Goals
- Provide safe, supportive and individualized care for neurodiverse children.
- Increase knowledge and confidence in caring for neurodiverse children.
- Improve clinical spaces, protocols, and training.
- Create sensory supports for patients.
- Enhance staff expertise for blood draws and vaccinations
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For more information on the PATH Program or for any questions contact: Katharine Harlan Owens, PATH Patient Navigator, at HS-PATH@ucdavis.edu or call 916-734-4152 for more information.
