Welcome to the Online PHDS: FAQs for Families

What is the Online PHDS?

The Online Promoting Healthy Development Survey (Online PHDS) is an online tool for parents to complete to assess whether young children (ages 3 - 72 months) receive well child preventive care as recommended in the Bright Futures Guidelines for Health Supervision of Infants, Children, and Adolescents—Fourth Edition.

Who should complete the Online PHDS?

The Online PHDS can be completed by the child’s parents or caregivers who know the child well and have responsibility for the child’s care.

What will I be asked to do in the Online PHDS?

You will be asked to answer questions about the care you received during your child’s most recent well child preventive care visit with their health care provider.

How does the Online PHDS work?

Providers share the Online PHDS link (unique URL) specific to their practice or organization with parents/caregivers. If providers do not currently have a unique URL, parents/caregivers can go to www.onlinephds.org.
Parents/caregivers complete the Online PHDS tool anonymously to provide feedback about their experience and quality of care they received to their child’s health care providers.
After completing the Online PHDS, parents/caregivers receive a personalized Family Feedback Report based on their responses, as well as educational resources that help guide them about questions they could ask at their child’s next well visit.
If using a unique URL, providers can review summary reports based on multiple parents’/caregivers’ responses.

How does the Online PHDS help me as a parent/caregiver?

The Online PHDS helps you learn about what to expect during visits with your child’s providers.
The Online PHDS gives you an opportunity to provide anonymous feedback to your child’s health care providers. This helps providers assess if and how they are meeting the parents’/caregivers’ needs and priorities.
Upon completing the tool, you will receive a personalized Family Feedback Report based on your responses. This report includes a summary of your responses, areas where your needs were or were not met on recommended topics, and educational resources that could help guide you. The report can help you remember questions you might want to ask at your child’s next well child preventive care visit.
The Family Feedback Report can help you partner with your child’s health care providers to improve the quality of well child care your child and family receive.

Who developed the Online PHDS?

This Online PHDS was developed by the Child and Adolescent Health Measurement Initiative (CAHMI). The development and maintenance of the Online PHDS has been supported by The Commonwealth Fund, The David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the federal Maternal and Child Health Bureau (MCHB), the American Board of Pediatrics (ABP), the CAHMI internal fund, with advisory support from many national experts, pediatricians, family leaders and health systems.

What kinds of questions are asked in the Online PHDS?

The Online PHDS asks questions about quality of care topics based on Bright Futures guidelines and whether you received the recommended care. It also asks whether your needs were met in areas such as parental education, parental concerns about your child’s learning, development and behavior, developmental and behavioral screening, and psychosocial well-being and safety in the family.
The Online PHDS also includes questions about your child’s health and health care needs like visits to the doctor’s office or emergency room, child’s health status, parent and family behaviors, parental health, and whether you had access to care and care coordination for your child.
Finally, there are questions about your child, you, and your family, to help us better understand the children and families who complete the Online PHDS.

When should I complete the Online PHDS?

You can complete the Online PHDS any time within 12 months after your visit with your child’s provider, but completing it soon after the visit allows for responses that are more accurate and provides more useful feedback.

How long does the Online PHDS take to complete?

The Online PHDS usually takes approximately 15 minutes to complete.

What if I start an Online PHDS survey and wish to complete it another time?

When you start an Online PHDS survey, you are given a unique survey code. You can use this code to return to the survey later. If this code is lost, there is no way to return to your incomplete survey. You will then have to start over. Be sure to copy your code before you exit the survey.

What if I have multiple children with recent well-child visits?

If you have multiple children with recent well-child visits, please complete the Online PHDS for one child first and then return and complete it for the other. The Online PHDS should be completed for each child individually.

Is the Online PHDS available in languages other than English?

Currently, the Online PHDS is only available in English. In the future, we hope to make it available in Spanish and other languages as time, capacity, and funding allow.

Can I use the Online PHDS on a mobile device? What if I don’t have internet at home?

Yes, you can use the Online PHDS on a mobile device.There is not an app, but the website is optimized for mobile use. If your family does not have internet at home, you can ask your child’s provider for assistance, or your local library or community center may have computers and internet access you could use.

How will the information collected in the Online PHDS be used? Is my information secure?

The information gathered on the website is confidential and anonymous.
We do not save any information that can be used to identify you or your child, and we do not share your individual information with your provider.
Parents who complete the Online PHDS receive a personalized Family Feedback Report based on their responses. This report helps guide families about the steps they can take to partner with their child’s healthcare providers to improve their child’s health care.
Providers, practices and organizations who have an account with the Online PHDS can generate an summary report of multiple parents’ responses, specific to their practice or organization. This report guides providers in how they can improve the care for young children. Providers will not know what the parent’s individual answers are or be able to identify who completed the Online PHDS.
The CAHMI team can use the combined findings from the Online PHDS to describe the current level of care that is provided to young children and to conduct data analysis for purposes of research and education. The group-level findings may be used for research purposes or presentations to clinicians, policymakers and health plan officials to inform them about where they should focus their quality improvement resources. No data will be sold or used outside of research and educational purposes.

What do I do after completing the Online PHDS?

You can print or save your Family Feedback Report and use it to guide you and remember questions you could ask at your child’s next visit. You can also review the resources on the report to help improve your child’s health and health care.

What if my provider doesn’t know about the Online PHDS?

Even if your provider doesn’t know about the Online PHDS, you can complete the Online PHDS and use the topics and resources in the feedback report to guide you and remember questions for your child’s next well visit. You can also introduce your child’s provider to the Online PHDS by sharing the Two-Page Overview and Provider FAQs with them. Your child’s provider can learn more about the Online PHDS and create an account to implement it at cycleofengagement.org.

For more information, please contact us at: info@cahmi.org

Back To The Survey