New Mexico participated in the ABCD Screening Academy as a “Setting the Stage for Success” grantee, a project designed to learn from and replicate the North Carolina ABCD Project model for integrating standardized developmental screening into well-child care visits.

Specifically, the ABCD Screening Academy project in New Mexico improved developmental screening by:

• Improving state policy to better support developmental screening by reimbursing providers for developmental screening when a standardized tool is used, and proposing the New Mexico Legislature make changes in EPSDT indicators to include standardized developmental screening, which is not currently a part of EPSDT.
• Improving provider practice around the use of standardized developmental screening tools by investigating the possibility of purchasing state access to ASQ in both English and Spanish, and designing a poster series targeting both professionals working with young children and parents to promote standardized developmental screening.
• Sustaining and spreading the use of standardized screening tools as part of well child care from a ‘best practice’ to a ‘standard of practice’ through developing grant proposals for additional community sites to participate in ABCD - one to provide support for implementation of DSI in 8 communities, 4 the first and 4 the second year of the grant, and the other for certification of DSI as a quality improvement program, participation in which would then quality for Part 4 of recertification required of pediatricians by 2010.