title: Identified health concerns and changes in management resulting from the Healthy Kids Check in two Queensland practices.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To determine how many children had health problems identified by the Healthy Kids Check (HKC) and whether this resulted in changes to clinical management.
  
  
  METHODS
  A medical records audit from two Queensland general practices, identifying 557 files of children who undertook an HKC between January 2010 and May 2013.
  
  
  METHODS
  Child health problems identified in the medical records before, during and after the HKC.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Most children in our sample had no problems detected in their medical record (56%), 21% had problems detected during the HKC assessment, 19% had problems detected before, and 4% after. Most frequent health concerns detected during the HKC were speech and language (20%), toileting, hearing and vision (15% each), and behavioural problems (9%). Of the 116 children with problems detected during the HKC, 19 (3% of the total sample) had these confirmed, which resulted in a change of management. No further action was recorded for 9% of children. Missing data from reviews or referral outcomes for 8% precluded analyses of these outcomes. We estimated that the change in clinical management to children with health concerns directly relating to the HKC ranged between 3% and 11%.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Overall, data suggest that general practitioners are diligent in detecting and managing child health problems. Some of these problems were detected only during the HKC appointment, resulting in change of management for some children. Further studies are required to estimate the full benefits and harms, and particularly the false negatives and true positives, of the HKC.
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Health Sciences and Medicine, Bond University, Gold Coast, QLD, Australia. rthomas@bond.edu.au.
authors.forename: Rae
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Thomas
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Health Sciences and Medicine, Bond University, Gold Coast, QLD, Australia.
authors.forename: Jennifer A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Doust
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Health Sciences and Medicine, Bond University, Gold Coast, QLD, Australia.
authors.forename: Kartik
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Vasan
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Health Sciences and Medicine, Bond University, Gold Coast, QLD, Australia.
authors.forename: Bianca
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Rajapakse
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Health Sciences and Medicine, Bond University, Gold Coast, QLD, Australia.
authors.forename: Leanne
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: McGregor
authors.affiliation: National Standing Committee - Quality Care, Royal Australian College of General Practitioners, Melbourne, VIC, Australia.
authors.forename: Evan
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Ackermann
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Health Sciences and Medicine, Bond University, Gold Coast, QLD, Australia.
authors.forename: Christopher B
authors.initials: CB
authors.lastname: Del Mar
mesh_terms: D002648:Child; D002662:Child Health Services / Q000379:methods*; D002658:Developmental Disabilities / Q000175:diagnosis; D058006:General Practice; D006801:Humans; D008485:Medical Audit; D008499:Medical Records; D011793:Queensland; D012189:Retrospective Studies