Paediatric Nurse Practitioner Led Universal Health assessments and Developmental Screening Linking Education & Health for the Under 5s

Children require timely, appropriate health and developmental screening, which links them to appropriate services, so they can achieve the best start in life. However, since the introduction of the Australian Early Development Census (AEDC) in 2009, the state of South Australia (SA) has demonstrated a slow, steady decline in childhood development status.

Our Paediatric Nurse Practitioner/Registered Nurse led universal health assessment and developmental screening initiatives for 1,056 children under 5s attending an Early Learning services across urban and rural SA. Nurse Practitioner/Registered Nurse (NP/RN) have attended Goodstart sites to conduct extensive health assessments and developmental screening (using the Brigance tool), which provides an in depth understanding of the health and developmental needs of children prior to school entry. Based on the results of the development and health screening, the NP/RNs provide educators and parents with easy-to-understand summaries, advice and activities to address identified needs, and provide direct referrals to connect families with health professionals. These activities facilitate early intervention strategies to maximise children’s capacity to reach their full potential. The model of service delivery also provides for extensive direct referrals and referral follow up, thus closing the care loop for children. This community-based intervention is up-scalable, and capable of addressing the needs of a much greater number of children aged 0 to 5 years.

The quantitative data shows 52% of the children screened thus far require referral to acute and primary health care services consisting of: 61% to Speech Pathology, 46% to Occupational Therapy, 34% required Paediatric ENT specialist interventions.