Grant: Project Grant

Each year, 45 000 infants in Canada are born with a severe medical problem, such as prematurity, cardiac conditions, or genetic syndrome. While many of these infants survive, they are at high-risk for long-term developmental disabilities. Follow-up programs (i.e., close monitoring of high-risk infants after hospital discharge) ensures timely diagnosis and interventions to optimize children's outcomes and are the standard of care across Canadian hospitals. However, over 30% of families are unable to access the follow-up care their child needs because they live to far or they cannot afford to take time off work. Missed follow-up raises the child's risk for poorer health and developmental outcomes. There is an imminent need for novel and sustainable approaches to facilitate access to follow-up care. To address this need, we developed a Virtual Infant Developmental Abilities Screening Program (VIDA-SCREEN), a family-centered approach for assessing a child's developmental abilities. The VIDA-SCREEN method complements existing follow-up programs by offering an initial triage step to identify children with delays needing further evaluations. However, to use this new method clinically, it must be rigorously tested and evaluated. Our project aims to assess the VIDA-SCREEN's accuracy to detect developmental delays, its user-friendliness to families and providers, and costs to implement in practice. We will engage 280 families and children, across urban and rural areas to test the VIDA-SCREEN. Findings from this study will generate the evidence needed to advance this digital screening method toward widespread clinical use. By demonstrating its accuracy, feasibility, and scalability, this work will directly inform healthy system administrators and policy makers seeking innovative and transformative solutions to improve access to health care and enhance the health and development of Canadian children.