Skip directly to site content Skip directly to search


Español  Other Languages


Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. CDC twenty four seven. Saving Lives, Protecting People
 Search

		Submit


Project Connect








Implementation Guide | Sustainability, Lessons Learned, and Conclusion						Print
																Related Pages
					Sustainability
The Provider Referral Guide will need to be updated periodically. Included providers can be surveyed yearly to ensure they are still taking youth patients and to determine if there has been any change in clinic hours, location, or other pertinent clinic-related information. It may be necessary to remove providers the Provider Referral Guide if they are no longer accepting youth patients, are non-responsive, no longer provide sexual and reproductive health care on-site, or if the types of payment they receive has altered significantly. Additional providers may also be added during these yearly updates if it is learned that they might be a good source of sexual and reproductive health care for youth.
*Implementation tip*: Outside of major changes, other changes to the Provider Referral Guide may involve changes in services offered, such as the provision of male and/or female condoms. In the past, few providers have been removed from the Provider Referral Guide. Those which were removed were generally no longer accepting new youth patients or had shifted their focus to adult care.
Lessons Learned
**Identifying the pool of potential providers will require cooperation with the local health department.** Data on reports of positive chlamydia tests, including the patient’s age and relevant provider information, must be routinely and systematically collected by the health department and the health department must be willing to share this information should a provider guide be developed by an organization outside of the health department. The cut-off used to determine which providers seem suitable for consideration may depend on local incidence and prevalence of the STD or health concern of interest among the youth population.
A clinical infrastructure which is substantial enough to be able to support an influx of youth into the local health care community needs to already exist. **The idea that youth can be linked to good providers only works if there are good providers available** within a reasonable distance and if there is sufficient variability/dispersion among providers to create a web of available health care providers. Without either of these, institutions can still seek to link youth to available health care providers. However, the process used to develop the current Provider Referral Guide may be less applicable.
**Identify possible structural barriers** which will need to be addressed, including: 
Lack of transportation options, including lack of available public transportation serving provider locations if applicable;
Local school policies governing the release of students for confidential health care services during the school day without parent notification and awareness of such policies by relevant school personnel if they exist;
Availability of health care providers who have after-school and/or weekend hours;
Availability of Medicaid or state-based programs designed to cover the costs associated with youth sexual and reproductive health care.
**Someone will have to spearhead efforts to produce a Provider Referral Guide and build linkages between community-based health care providers and the youth-serving organizations.** This person(s) may be in a health department, within the school system, or part of an outside agency. After development of the guide, annual update and review will require continued interest and a commitment to the allocation of personnel to the project if it is to be a sustainable effort.
**The main cost involved in the implementation of a provider guide is not money but, instead, staff time and motivation.** There is a moderate time investment involved in the creation and culling of the provider pool and in the development of a Provider Referral Guide which contains all of the information needed by youth to take advantage of available health care options. Past this, the systematic updating of the material so that the information contained within is still relevant and timely will involve systematically and regularly revisiting the development process.
Immediate evidence of success in the form of a significant uptick in the number of youth receiving screening and treatment from providers listed in the guide may not occur; however, **over time, increased linkages between youth and sexual and reproductive health care providers and an increase in health care use by youth should occur.**
This approach may also provide opportunities to influence local providers’ practice.  Through ongoing contact with area providers, they can be supplied with updated guidelines, and by creating a referral guide with a set of criteria for inclusion, local providers may be encouraged to alter their practices to meet these criteria (e.g., becoming more teen friendly, providing services targeting younger patients).Conclusion
Project Connect is a low-cost mechanism for linking youth to sexual and reproductive health care. It takes advantage of already existing systems (e.g., school nurses, community providers) and facilitates collaboration between community-based providers, schools and/or youth-serving organizations, and the local health department. The primary investment of resources occurs in the first year of development and derives primarily from the allocation of staff time to identifying providers, collecting pertinent provider information, compiling information into a guide format, and working with the implementing organizations to integrate the referral of students to health care. By providing youth with the initial link to community based health care providers, Project Connect begins the training and modeling process for youth to link into a broader health care community.
							
					
							Last Reviewed:  April 1, 2020						Source: 	Division of STD Prevention, National Center for HIV, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
					Facebook
        Twitter
        LinkedIn
        Syndicate homeProject Connect
Implementation Guideminus icon
Overview, Challenge, and Core Components
The Road Map – Key Action Steps
Sustainability, Lessons Learned, and Conclusion
Case Studiesplus icon
Detroit
Los Angeles
Tools


About CDC
					Contact Us
					800-232-4636
 Facebook Twitter Instagram LinkedIn Youtube Pinterest Snapchat
 CONTACT CDC
				Contact Us
							Call 800-232-4636
							Email Us
			ABOUT CDC
				About CDC
							Jobs
							Funding
			POLICIES
				Accessibility
							External Links
							Privacy
							Policies
							No Fear Act
							FOIA
							OIG
							Nondiscrimination
							Vulnerability Disclosure Policy
			CONNECT WITH US
				Facebook
								Twitter
								Instagram
								LinkedIn
							Youtube
								Pinterest
								Snapchat
								Email
			LANGUAGES
				Español
							繁體中文
							Tiếng Việt
							한국어
							Tagalog
							Русский
							العربية
							Kreyòl Ayisyen
							Français
							Polski
							Português
							Italiano
							Deutsch
							日本語
							فارسی
							English


U.S. Department of Health & Human Services
			Accessibility
			External Links
			Privacy
			Policies
			No Fear Act
			FOIA
			Nondiscrimination
			OIG
			Vulnerability Disclosure Policy
			USA.gov


Exit Notification / Disclaimer Policy Close
 Links with this icon  indicate that you are leaving the CDC website. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) cannot attest to the accuracy of a non-federal website.
				Linking to a non-federal website does not constitute an endorsement by CDC or any of its employees of the sponsors or the information and products presented on the website.
				You will be subject to the destination website's privacy policy when you follow the link.
				CDC is not responsible for Section 508 compliance (accessibility) on other federal or private website. Website Disclaimers
 Cancel Continue