Health care quality measures for children and adolescents in Foster Care: feasibility testing in electronic records

Table 2 Demographic, Entry, and Exit Related Characteristics of 0–3 Year Olds

	EHR	SACWIS
	N = 375	N = 1887
Age in months at first entry into foster care	6 (0, 16)	6 (0, 19)
Number of months in foster care from birth through age 3 years or Feb 28, 2013^a	9.2 (3.0, 17.9)	8.4 (1.9, 17.0)
Exact dates for all entries into and exits from foster care	168 (44.8)	1887 (100)
Exact dates of all entries into foster care during study period	287 (76.5)	1887 (100)
Male	193 (51.5)	984 (52.2)
Race/Ethnicity
White	129 (34.4)	713 (37.8)
Black/African-American	152 (40.5)	772 (40.9)
≥ 2 Races	39 (10.4)	223 (11.8)
Other	30 (8.0)	4 (2.1)
Unknown/Not documented	25 (6.7)	39 (2.1)
Hispanic	13 (3.5)	136 (7.2)
Reason for first entry into foster care^b
Neglect^c	N/A	550 (29.2)
Dependency^d	N/A	368 (19.5)
Parental drug or alcohol abuse	122 (32.5)	358 (19.0)
Physical abuse	37 (9.9)	311 (16.5)
Caretaker’s inability to cope	N/A	99 (5.3)
Incarceration of parents	15 (4.0)	49 (2.6)
Other	138 (36.8)	152 (8.1)
Not documented	96 (25.6)	0 (0)
Number of entries into foster care
1	353 (94.1)	1734 (91.9)
2	22 (5.9)	138 (7.3)
3	0 (0)	15 (0.8)
Foster home changes during all foster care episodes
None	322 (85.9)	1091 (57.8)
1	46 (12.3)	490 (26.0)
2	4 (1.1)	210 (11.1)
> 2	3 (0.8)	96 (5.1)
Still in foster care as of 3rd birthday or Feb 28, 2013
Yes	114 (30.4)	219(11.61)
No, reunited	76 (20.3)	813 (43.1)
No, entered kinship care	63 (16.8)	336 (17.8)
No, adopted	44 (11.7)	314 (16.6)
Other	N/A	193 (10.2)
Unknown/Not documented	78 (20.8)	12 (0.6)

Data are shown as median (interquartile range) or frequency (%). ^aUnknown dates of entry and exit in the EHR study cohort were estimated as described in the methods. For the calculation of months spent in foster care, a 30 day period was treated as a month. ^bSome patients had multiple reasons for entry into foster care, all of which were extracted. However, only the primary reason for removal is available in a structured field in SACWIS. ^cNeglect was not captured as a reason for entry into foster care in the EHR study. Rather, particular types of neglect or reasons for neglect were captured such as parental drug and alcohol abuse, abandonment, and parental developmental disability or mental illness. ^dDependency removals were for reasons not related to abuse or neglect, or in cases when parents could not care for their children but were not neglecting or abusing them (e.g. homelessness or death of parents in a car accident). This type of reason for entry was also not captured as a distinct category in the EHR study, but rather is incorporated within the “Other category”

ISSN: 1471-2431