TOP 21 - Pediatric Primary Care Providers’ Perspectives on Accessing and Using School-Based Information: A Mixed-Methods Exploration

Publication Number: 2773.TOP 21

Allen Yiu, Children's National Health System, Washington, DC, United States; Danielle Dooley, Children's National Health System, Washington, DC, United States; Eduardo Fox, Children's National Health System, Washington, DC, DC, United States; Beth A. Tarini, Co-Director, Silver Spring, MD, United States

Background: Pediatric healthcare providers play a vital role in promoting child well-being across clinical and educational domains. They are increasingly called upon to assess school readiness, support attendance, collaborate with school personnel to ensure safe medication administration, and advocate for special education services. While these activities rely on timely, accurate, and actionable school-based information, little is known about how such information is currently accessed, its completeness or reliability, and how it informs clinical care. Limited evidence exists on the processes, barriers, and opportunities for integrating school data into pediatric provider workflows.

Objective: To characterize pediatric primary care providers’ current practices in obtaining school-related information, evaluate satisfaction with the data received, and explore perspectives on integrating school-based information into clinical workflows.

Design/Methods: We conducted a mixed-methods study using an online survey and semi-structured interviews. The survey was distributed to pediatric primary care providers practicing in urban and suburban settings, followed by purposive sampling of respondents for qualitative interviews. Among 35 survey respondents, most were female (n=31, 88.6%), had ≥6 years of practice experience (n=22, 62.9%), and practiced in settings with ≥50% Medicaid-insured patients (n=19, 54.3%). The five most frequently cited challenges in obtaining school-based data were administrative burden of required follow-up, time constraints during the patient visit, lack of care-coordination support, lack of reliably sourced information, and limited knowledge in how to obtain information. Seven interviews were completed: three participants were female (42.9%), five had ≥6 years of practice experience (71.4%), and five practiced in settings with Medicaid-majority populations. Preliminary thematic codes have been established (see Table 1). Early findings suggest that providers believe parents serve as critical yet inconsistent intermediaries in relaying school-related data. Providers also express strong interest in establishing direct, bidirectional communication channels with schools but acknowledge the need to preserve caregiver involvement. Participants also highlight workload concerns and privacy considerations related to adopting new technologies for information sharing. This study was reviewed and deemed exempt by our institutional review board.