Our first meeting of the fall began with a presentation by AmeriCare, a part of Epic Health Services, specifically their “At Home” portion of their services. Their contacts are Jill Chaban and Martha Rankins. AmeriCare can be reached through 1-800-601-3562. AmeriCare At Home offers medical home care with a specialty in clients that have a mental health component. Their current target population is ages sixteen and over, but there is a pediatric division opening in the next few months that will expand the age range. They offer home visits, medication management, and reinforcement of behavioral plans, but do not have prescribing capabilitites.

Our next speaker was Dr. Matthew Sadof, who is developing a care plan project this fall. He would like to form a family and community based focus group to help develop universal care plans that can be cloud based, paper based, and tied in the health information exchange and possibly patient portals. The group discussed the importance of a flagging system for frequent flyers in the pediatric system. A possible link to cell phone applications was also emphasized.

Next, Community Resources for People with Autism’s Carla Doyle-Florence spoke. She can be contacted at (413)529-2428 ext. 119. Their office is located in Easthampton and multilingual services are available. CRPA serves individuals ages zero to twenty-two in the four counties of Western Massachusetts.

She shared the following: The Department of Developmental Services Autism Waiver Program is accepting application for children under nine years of age for three-year intensive care plans between October 7^th and October 18^th. There are only two-hundred slots available statewide. The application is available here in eleven languages or by phone at 1-888-367-4435.

To continue, Karen Cassidy from Thom Western Regional Consultation Program, spoke in regards to the Thom Holiday Party coming up at Shriners this December. If interested in sponsoring or volunteering, contact Karen Cassidy at (413) 783-5500 ext. 25 or Dr. Jane O’Brien of the Franciscan Hospital for Children.

Nancy Bazanchuk of the CHD announced new classes starting for both adults and children including dance and sled hockey. Their activities calendar can be found here.