Author: Juliellen Simpson-Vos, Project Director
We sure do have a lot to be grateful for and excited about this year!Participants in the WATCH Program have been so engaged and involved! What a dramatic change from last year at this time when the first video conference units were just being installed and we were all wondering "how do I even use this thing!?!" In just the past two months the video conference units have been used for multiple purposes. Four video clinics were conducted at the
Tammy Lynn Center, two administrative meetings and three networking sessions were held between WATCH sites, and two and
professional development opportunities have occurred in the months of October and November.
In October, Ursula Lavelle a RN in the Physical Medicine and Rehabiliation Clinic at UNC, participated in a video conference discussion with staff at
Hilltop Home on wound care issues. Ursula's expertise and insights helped to reinforce the quality of care provided at Hilltop Home, as well as offered new resources and suggestions. Also in October, the Raleigh CDSA hosted a multipoint videoconference session to educate and inform sites and service providers on the intake, assessment, evaluation and transition procedures for children entering the early intervention system. Over 45 people were able to attend that video conference session. In November, the video conference units were used to facilitate a multipoint Feeding In-
service for 30 WATCHParticipants. Cindy Whilden and Sue Powell, both Occupational Therapists from Easter Seals UCP-Children's Therapy Services led this popular session that focused on variety of feeding difficulties for children with special needs and provided tips and suggestions
for making feeding a more enjoyable and successful activity.
The TelAbility team has also been actively involved in local and statewide outreach. Juliellen, the TelAbility/ WATCH Project Director, presented the TelAbility program and WATCH model to the specialists involved in the statewide Healthy Behaviors Initiative. This will hopefully lead to a collaboration between WATCH, the local Behavior Specialists, the Wake County Resource and Referral agency (Child Care Services Association) and possibly the Mental Health Initiative at Learning Together. The hope is for all the programs to work together to create a series of mental health inservices to be available in the new year. WATCH and Learning Together are also collaborating on an inservice series that will offer basic Spanish lessons to teachers and therapists.
Another major accomplishment of the past few months was the creation of the WATCH Care Coordination Reimbursement Policy. As many sites
have discovered, therapists and early intervention service coordinators
are not allowed to bill for the video clinic or consult time. This, of course, has been a major barrier for
WATCH sites desiring to utilize their video conference units in this manner. In response to this need, the
WATCH team has created a contract for each WATCH site interested in getting reimbursed for video clinic or consult time. If you are a WATCH site and are interested in pursuing this possibility, please contact Juliellen
and a contract will be created for your program. The Care Coordination invoice and polices are now located on the TelAbility website under the Technical Support link for you to access and review. Staff at the Tammy Lynn Center, Community Partnerships and Easter Seals/UCP Children's Therapy
Services are currently taking advantage of this new incentive.
Finally, we are excited to be able to add 3 new sites to the WATCH Program in the very near future, bringing our total number of sites up to 14. Staff from Pediatric Therapy Associates, Project Enlightenment and Wake County Preschool Services will soon be able to share their resources and expertise and gain a larger sense of community and access to information that other WATCH sites currently experience. The 3 new sites were chosen based upon input from all of you, their current and active involvement in your programs and their ability to help WATCH continue to meet and exceed our goals. The team at Pediatric Therapy Associates will help to increase video clinic and consult time. Project Enlightenment will help to increase the number of professional development activities and administrative meetings offered via video conference and Wake County Preschool Services will aid WATCH programs and families when updating IEPs and transitioning out of Early Intervention into the school system model of special education. We are excited to get them connected soon!
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