New Report Finds Children in Poverty Continue to Face Challenges in Getting Needed Medical Care – Regardless of Insurance Status

NEW YORK, April 22, 2015 /3BL Media/ - In a new white paper released today by the Samsung Innovation Center at Children’s Health Fund (SICCHF), researchers examined how technology can be leveraged to improve the health of children in poverty across the United States. “The Growing Health Gap for Children in Poverty: Will the Health Technology Revolution Level the Playing Field?” explores the need for, the potential of, and the challenges to expanding the application and impact of innovative health care technology to ensure the provision of healthcare to all children.

The Samsung Innovation Center at Children’s Health Fund was established to provide information and analysis about how advanced technology can help level the playing field and assure that all children have access to timely and quality health care. In addition to the fact that about 20 percent of children live in poverty, here are some of the barriers to timely and appropriate health care that children face:

• At least 15 – 20 million children live in areas federally defined as lacking in health professionals;
• Even with the Affordable Care Act in place, at least 5.5 million children still lack health insurance; and,
• Some 3 million children miss medical appointments because affordable transportation to medical facilities is not available.

“For nearly 30 years, Children’s Health Fund has treated underserved children in communities throughout the country. And during that time, we have seen many advances in medical technology, from electronic medical records – which Children’s Health Fund first pioneered as a space saving measure on mobile clinics in the 1980s – to advanced telehealth measures in use today. But often those who can most benefit from this technology are the last to receive access to it,” said Dr. Irwin Redlener, president and co-founder of Children’s Health Fund and director of SICCHF. “The goal of this white paper is to drive home the message that technology is important for everyone, and lays out the vital next steps we must take in order to achieve healthcare parity for all.”

“The Growing Health Gap for Children in Poverty” expands upon the ways technology can be used to drive major change for those in need and seeks to identify the current technology opportunities as well as provide insights on the unique healthcare sensitivities that underserved children face.  Through months of in-depth research, the experts at SICCHF provided five recommendations to ensure healthcare technology gives every child a chance at a healthy future.

1. New technologies must be designed for or adapted to the needs of children.
2. The federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services should create a special fund to incentivize the development of technologies to improve accessibility and quality of healthcare for medically underserved children.
3. Training curricula for health sciences students and providers should include education regarding the effective use of technology in improving health care.
4. Efforts should be made to ensure that families full understand how new technologies can improve the quality and availability of health information relevant to their children.
5. Innovative ways to make health care more accessible and efficient, especially for underserved children, must be financially supported.

The paper was released by The Samsung Innovation Center at Children’s Health Fund which was established in 2014 to provide information and analysis about how advanced technology can help level the playing field and assure that all children have access to timely and quality health care.

Samsung Electronics America has committed $2 million dollars to Children’s Health Fund to establish the SICCHF, which is designed to call attention to challenges where advanced technology can be developed and deployed to reduce medical access disparities for economically disadvantaged youth across the country. In addition, SICCHF will develop and deploy a state-of-the-art mobile health clinic that incorporates a host of highly advanced telehealth equipment and other innovative technologies.

For more information regarding Children’s Health Fund and the Samsung Innovation Center at Children’s Health Fund, please visit here. To view the white paper, please click here.

Children’s Health Fund
Founded in 1987 by singer/songwriter Paul Simon and pediatrician/advocate Irwin Redlener, M.D., Children's Health Fund is the nation's leading pediatric provider of mobile-based health care for homeless and low-income children and their families. Its mission is to bring health care directly to those in need through the development and support of innovative medical programs, response to public health crises, and the promotion of guaranteed access to health care for all children. Children’s Health Fund currently has 50 mobile clinics serving hundreds of locations in 17 states and the District of Columbia. Over the past 25 years, the organization has treated over 350,000 disadvantaged children.

Media Contacts:
Jonathan Steed
Children’s Health Fund & SICCHF
jsteed@chfund.org
212.535.9400

Drea Braxmeier
DKC
drea_braxmeier@dkcnews.com
202.552.5446