Frequently Asked Questions

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) for Early Childhood Service Providers


Benefits and Implementation of the COE WVP Approach to Care
Why implement the Cycle of Engagement Well Visit Planner (COE WVP) Approach to Care?

Screening tools are commonly used in healthcare visits or shared with families via text or email. However, these tools often follow a provider-centered, step-by-step approach that lacks integration and fails to engage families as active participants. Additionally, they do not offer automated feedback or provide resources regarding the results. The Well Visit Planner (WVP) was created to address these issues and incorporates a wide range of screening tools based on family reports and aligns with the age-specific Bright Futures Guidelines. It utilizes highly valid and interoperable screening tools, eliminating the need for separate licenses or additional fees. Moreover, it can be used by family specialists, community partners, and families themselves on mobile devices, whether at home, in the clinic, or anywhere else. By saving time during visits and assisting in cost recovery, the WVP enhances efficiency while improving health outcomes. The COE WVP approach bridges the gap between providers and families by ensuring that both receive the same information, enabling care to be focused on the child and family's agenda while adhering to best practice guidelines. With the WVP, all recommended screeners are completed, and families can actively learn about and select their educational and counseling priorities. You also have the option to include additional screeners or resources of your choice. The developmental screener included in the WVP is the Survey of Well-Being for Young Children (SWYC), which has been shown to be equally sensitive and specific compared to the Ages and Stages Questionnaire (ASQ).

A Cycle of Engagement account and tools are currently free for early adopters. However, as we scale the innovation, we plan to introduce a pricing structure in the future to cover our costs for maintenance and improvements. We are committed to ensuring that costs remain reasonable and affordable. The CAHMI may contact early adopters to request feedback and share experiences using the tools in exchange.

Both! Individual service providers and professionals can register for their own accounts and customize their own family websites and tools. Organizations or clinics can also register for their own account and add their team members as additional account holders so everyone on the team can access the same account and use the same family tools.

Yes! Community health workers, family-to-family specialists, early care and education, home visiting, child welfare or other child-serving and family-facing professionals can get a COE account and customize their own WVP family website and tool, help families use it and discuss findings to support children and families. These providers can share the Clinical Summary and/or family Well Visit Guide with the family’s healthcare provider. The WVP has been promoted for use in Head Start/Early Head Start, across early child care systems in a recent national letter from the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) and in the Engagement In Action Framework for an integrated early childhood health system.

The CAHMI has developed resources with non-healthcare family support professionals to facilitate partnerships with primary health care providers. Family support specialists can optimize the WVP by helping families complete WVP screeners and assessments, discuss important findings, and send/share the family’s results to the primary care provider to prepare for the child’s well visit.


The Well Visit Planner and online Promoting Healthy Development Survey tools

The WVP has been proven effective in improving the quality of care and reducing urgent care through two four-year studies (a quasi-experimental and a randomized controlled trial), as well as additional implementation studies. Both families and child healthcare professionals have expressed satisfaction with using the WVP. The PHDS is a quality assessment tool that has been validated and endorsed by the Nationally Quality Forum in 2008. It has shown its effectiveness in tracking and driving improvements in care for families. Studies indicate that families are willing to use the WVP if they know that they will not have to repeat filling out screeners, and that they appreciate being asked to engage and set their own agenda. Although this approach may be new for most families and healthcare professionals, it is worth it to shift towards partnering closely with families to promote the health of the child and the family, while still meeting the screening and quality of care requirements. Learn more here about the tools development and research. If interested, we are seeking research partners.

Currently, the Well Visit Planner is tailored to the first 15 age-specific well visits starting from a child’s first week through their sixth year of life.

Yes. The CAHMI has decades of data security expertise and partners with best in class HIPPA security professionals to ensure all data collected is stored using the highest data security standards and in full compliance with HIPAA standards at all times. See our Summary of Data Collection and Storage Procedures and Policies, Use Agreement and Privacy Notice for more information. More information about our data security is available by request.

On average, the WVP takes about 10 minutes to complete. It may take a bit longer the first time for families to adjust to the tool or if you choose to add additional assessments beyond those included in the core, guidelines based WVP tool. Taking longer usually means more learning and families report is does not take too much time!

Yes. The WVP and PHDS can be optimized on a smartphone or similar device.

Currently, the WVP is in English and Spanish. Invitation scripts, postcards, and posters are also available in Spanish. We are currently working on translating the PHDS. If you would like to partner with us to support the translation efforts, contact us at info@cycleofengagement.org.

To provide a more accurate picture of your performance we look at the average of the responses over 25 encounters. This will give you an “average” response that better reflects your performance. It also eliminates the chance that any of the respondents could be identified through their responses.


Integration and Use of the COE tools

Families have 3 ways to access your customized WVP and PHDS websites: 1) by clicking your a unique website link, 2) entering your provider ID code, or 3) scanning your website QR code. You can engage families either before, during, or after the well child visit using personalized invitations and flyers and communicate with them the way you normally would (in-person, phone call, email, text, or patient portal). We also provide engagement resources and guidance, such as customizable family flyers, verbal/email scripts, office posters and others to support family engagement.

Invite families using any mode of communication you currently use, such as in-person reminders, phone calls, emails, patient portals, or text messages. Additionally, you can use the "invite families" feature on the WVP Use Portal to send a standard email or text message provided by the CAHMI. We also provide customized family flyers, office posters, and verbal/email scripts as resources to help you engage families.

Yes! The Well Visit Planner was developed and tested for full integration into electronic health records. While you can easily scan the WVP Clinical Summary into your electronic record as is commonly done, the CAHMI can work with you to set up an API or other approach to automatically transfer Clinical Summary’s and/or Well Visit Guides as well as specific data elements you may want to integrate into your electronic records. Most child health professionals found the Clinical Summary to be sufficient for use, billing and record keeping. You can also ask families to use the WVP through a patient portal and we can work with you to be sure the Clinical Summary is directly transferred to your electronic record. Collaboration with your EHR team and the CAHMI, as well as additional data sharing agreements, are required.

Families can complete the WVP on devices in your office or during home visits. You can also verbally administer the WVP in person, over the phone, or via video platforms. All options have demonstrated value for families and providers.

No. You choose who to engage and when. You can start small and engage only a few families at first. We provide implementation resources to support you and guide you through a Plan-Do-Study-Act model to ease scaling of use. Test drive the tools and see.

No. If you do not want to sign up for a COE account, you can ask families to use the tools today on our public websites at www.wellvisitplanner.org and www.onlinephds.org. Note: If you do not register for a COE account, you will not be able to customize your own WVP/PHDS websites and tools.

Families are asked to proactively consent to sharing their responses with you at the start of the Well Visit Planner. If they consent to sharing their data with you, you will automatically receive their Well Visit Guide and Clinical Summary on your WVP Data Dashboard. If a family does not proactively consent to sharing their responses with you, or if you choose to not customize a WVP but still encourage families to use it, they may bring in their WVG and CS at the time of their visit and you may review their responses then. There is also the possibility to share Clinical Summaries and Well Visit Guides across WVP Data Dashboards with partners who support the same families. With a family’s consent, they may share family data via their WVP Data Dashboard directly to yours (or via another secure form of communication).

Yes. The PHDS is a nationally accepted and validated quality tool for well-child care. It allows you to compare well-child care outcomes across multiple domains both before and after any quality improvement change to document improvement.


Additional tools and resources

Yes. The CAHMI developed the CARE_PATH for Kids shared care planning tools, under the Cycle of Engagement model, to ensure comprehensive care plans are based on the foundation of child and family needs, priorities, goals and social and family contexts.

You can find more Provider Information on the family websites of each tool here: www.wellvisitplanner.org and www.onlinephds.org. You can also view a demo and/or join a webinar with the CAHMI. Email us at info@cycleofengagement.org with additional questions.

Download our COE WVP Getting Started Toolkit to review the model, tools, how to create an account, and additional benefits and information. When you are ready, signing up is easy! Go to Request an Account and provide your email address and a bit more information about yourself to be redirected to our COE Registration Portal. Once registration is complete, you will be able to customize your WVP and/or PHDS family websites and tools.

Email us with any additional questions at:  info@cycleofengagement.org