Goldberg Center for Community Pediatric Health recognized as a national leader in improving health care to underserved children

WASHINGTON—Children's National Medical Center is the recipient of the Academic Pediatric Association's (APA) 2009 Health Care Delivery Award, recognizing the institution's work to advance two nationally benchmarked child health quality measures: immunization compliance rates and preventive care visits.

Annually, the APA competitively selects one national award winner in the healthcare delivery category to recognize innovation, effectiveness, and care excellence in a delivery system that includes medical students and residents. The Goldberg Center for Community Pediatric Health, home to primary care at Children's National, was selected for applying a system the effectively integrated quality improvement methods, information technology, and community partnerships to dramatically improve the compliance rate for immunizations in children ages 19 to 35 month-old age.

Children's initiative resulted in an increase in the percentage of 19 to 35 month-old patients who are up-to-date on targeted immunizations from 75 percent in 2006 to 88 percent in 2008. These dramatic increases now rank the Goldberg Center compliance rates comparable with the top five jurisdictions in the country according to the most recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data. Additionally, for the first time, the District of Columbia as a whole is currently recognized as the urban area with the highest immunization rates for this same patient population.