Healthy Athletes Provider Directory Opens to Public on 20 July
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Dr. Stephen Corbin, Dean of Special Olympics University, congratulates Dr. Mary Frank, Board Chair of the American Academy of Family Physicians after she became the first provider to sign up on the new Healthy Athletes Provider Director, a Web-based database of health care providers willing to treat people with intellectual disabilities. (Photo courtesy of AAFP). |
Ensuring that athletes' access recommended follow-up care after the screening is one goal of Special Olympics Healthy Athletes. In September 2005, Special Olympics launched the Healthy Athletes Provider Directory in North America, a searchable online database of health-care professionals who are able and willing to treat patients with intellectual disabilities. Since then, nearly 1,000 providers have listed themselves in the Provider Directory. The Provider Directory opened to the public on 20 July - and individuals from the United States, Mexico, Canada and the Caribbean can locate a medical professional in a few mouse clicks. Future Provider Directory expansion will include other regions of the world.
“The Academy of General Dentistry Foundation, along with the Academy of General Dentistry, has heard Special Olympics' call to populate the Healthy Athletes Provider Directory,” said Bob Roesch, Chair of the Special Olympics Special Smiles Committee for the Academy of General Dentistry Foundation. “By partnering with Special Olympics, we have not only established a goal of increasing the number of dentists listed in the Provider Directory, but also we are working toward having 10 percent of our membership listed by 2009. Early response from our members has been very positive.”
Designed to provide an easy-to-use means for people with intellectual disabilities and their families to find a health-care professional in their area, the Provider Directory is on its way to becoming the largest list of health-care providers for people with intellectual disabilities in the United States. Health-care providers are encouraged to sign up, invite their colleagues to participate and engage any professional service organizations they are members of to get involved in also recruiting providers.
Although not yet designated as a “medically underserved” group by the U.S. federal government, people with intellectual disabilities have limited access to health care, and the quality of care they do receive is often poor. Disparities in care often result in a higher prevalence of preventable conditions. Special Olympics-commissioned research reinforces published studies that found despite the widespread belief that individuals with intellectual disabilities receive better health care than the rest of the population, people with intellectual disabilities actually have poorer health, more specialized health-care needs and greater difficulty accessing health-care services and doctors compared to the general public.
Participation in the Provider Directory is strictly voluntary; the online database facilitates the connection between a person with an intellectual disability and a health-care professional. Special Olympics cannot guarantee that the information it receives is up-to-date nor does Special Olympics endorse the qualifications of the health-care providers listed in the Directory.
If you are a health-care professional and are interested in engaging your professional organization in the Healthy Athletes program, please contact Jessica Stone, Senior Manager of Health and Research Communications, at jstone@specialolympics.org.
Return to Healthy Athletes Update, Summer 2007
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