Slide Presentation from the AHRQ 2007 Annual Conference

The Problem - Community Perspective

• Majority of US preschool children are in child care
• Acute illness is more common among children in child care
• For parents using child care, a child's illness accounts for 40% of work absence
• Over 50% of working mothers will miss work the next time one of their children is ill

Notes:

Health-e-Access was designed to address a problem of national significance.

Because many have no direct experience with telemedicine, a substantial part of this presentation addresses background as well as characteristics of our telemed model.

Although most of these illness episodes are minor, they impose a tremendous social and economic burden. [Resources for dealing with this challenge are not readily available to many inner city families. Thus, the children and families most burdened by illness, whose reliance on child care is most important to their ability to improve economic circumstances, are those least equipped to deal with the challenge]