April is World Autism Month, and St. Tammany Hospital Foundation Board Member Sunny McDaniel joined St. Tammany Health System’s Cindy Ingram to talk about both organizations’ ongoing initiative to promote not just autism awareness but autism acceptance in our community.
That includes the Certified Autism Center designation that is in place across the health system’s pediatric service lines – but there are also ways you can help encourage autism acceptance in western St. Tammany Parish.
Listen in to their conversation with the embedded audio player below. You can also scroll down further for a full transcript, edited lightly for length and clarity.
Dave: We got a studio full of people here from St. Tammany Parish Hospital. Tim, good morning.
Tim: Good morning Dave, how you doing? I haven’t seen you in a while.
Dave: I know it has been a while. … So, you have guests with you this morning.
Tim: I do. April 1st, even though it was April Fool’s, it was the beginning of a monthlong of autistic acceptance in our community. And what better way to talk about that than to bring in some of our autism experts who really, about a year ago, helped to secure an accreditation in autism across our Pediatrics line. So, with me today is Sunny McDaniel, who can tell us a little bit more about that accreditation, what we are doing, helping those families – and maybe at the end we can hear about how you can play a part in our outreach.
Dave: OK, welcome.
Sunny: Hi, thank you. I appreciate it.
Dave: Dr. Sunny McDaniel, you are on the St. Tammany Hospital Foundation Board of Trustees.
Sunny: Yes sir. I just started that role this year. I am so excited to join the group.
Dave: What does that role entail?
Sunny: Gosh, my role right now is to build more autism acceptance awareness within St. Tammany Parish. What does that mean for our facilities and our community as a whole? So, a year ago we started working on this (Certified Autism Center) designation. The designation represents that our providers, our RNs, our staff have been trained in and are taking extra steps to adapt our practices in the healthcare community in order to deliver better care, quality care.
So, autism when you think about it, is really challenges in three core areas. That is social communication, social interaction, and repetitive restrictive behavior. Sometimes it’s difficult when (patients with autism) come in the healthcare system, whether it is the ER or just everyday appointments. Sometimes that can be a little bit anxiety-provoking. So, what we do is we step back and go, ‘OK, how can we help individuals with autism and provide them with better care?’
An example of that would be maybe we use a different way of communicating. Some children or even adults on the spectrum may be nonverbal. Anyone who is non-verbal tends to communicate through behavior. And so sometimes we’ll use different augmentative or assistant devices to help communicate better with our patients or clients. That can be through texts, pictures, it can be sign language, it can be really whatever the patient’s needs are. So, that is the biggest step. Our RNs, staff and providers need to be able to establish that communication. So, that is just a small, small tip of the iceberg on how we do our training.
Dave: Let me ask you: Was this something that was lacking in St. Tammany before?
Sunny: It is. Unfortunately, it is lacking across the United States. It’s not just St. Tammany Parish. Autism now, the new numbers came out, and it is one in 44 – and so those numbers are constantly increasing. I think … the studies are showing it’s more because we are better at recognizing the signs and symptoms. So, we want to make sure that we are encompassing a neurodiverse population.
When you start hearing the word neurodiversity associated with autism, it is basically a way of thinking. Everyone interacts with the world differently, have different aspects of how they interpret the world in return. That’s what they mean when you see a lot of neurodiversity signs. So, when you have a patient come into the clinic, their interpretation of what I think I am communicating may not be interpreted the same way.
So, you have a child that comes in. If you think about it, their first two years of life, they are getting shots all the time. No wonder they are scared, right? I was scared to death as a child coming into the doctor’s office. I just knew I was going to get that shot. But now you take a child that maybe can’t communicate like everyone else, or maybe they have some sensory issues where the lights bother them or the loud noises and that interpretation. So, now you have and extra step where the anxiety builds up. So, it is really important that we take a step back and figure out the why (behind) the behaviors so we can make sure we are delivering better care.
Dave: We are speaking with the folks from the St. Tammany Hospital Foundation. I would like to introduce Cindy Ingram. Good morning to you.
Cindy: Good morning.
Dave: What is your role?
Cindy: I am the assistant vice president for Women and Children’s Services at St. Tammany Health System.
Dave: OK, fantastic. It is World Autism Month, and that is what we are talking about. We were talking with Dr. Sunny just a moment ago. If someone is looking for this particular type of care, is there a venue, they need to take? Website, phone call, location?
Cindy: Well, you are welcome to look on the website. All of our pediatric service lines at St. Tammany Health System are Certified Autism Centers. That entails our staff being trained to care for these individuals.
It takes a special interaction between the healthcare provider and the patient. As Dr. McDaniel stated, sometimes you have to treat them a little bit different. They may need the lights turned down. They may need the sound down, noise-canceling headphones, different things to occupy their time, things on the ceiling for them to look at while you are doing an exam. So, with the autism designation, our healthcare providers, the nursing staff, the physicians, and anybody who is on that unit or in that clinic from the registration staff to the physicians have been trained on how to interact with these individuals.
Dave: I am assuming it is working. How is it progressing so far?
Cindy: It is working. I feel the parents have more confidence in coming to our clinics, our (pediatric) emergency room, our inpatient pediatrics unit, our pediatric ICU, the Bone and Joint Clinic, where Dr. McCall McDaniel is orthopedic surgeon for pediatrics, as well as our general pediatric clinic. The parents appreciate the fact that we have specially trained staff for their children. The kids interact better. They are more comfortable. They are calmer when they come in, we feel. It has been a big step for St. Tammany Health System.
Dave: You have both spoken a lot about the training that your staff has gone through. Can you expand on that at all? What is different about it than normal?
Cindy: There are specific education modules that the staff do. They have to complete those modules. They have a certain period of time to do that. It is a large number of hours. I can’t remember the exact number of hours right now. It is a lot of education hours they have to go through. It is all on the computer modules that you go through. It shows you how to interact. Things you can use as a distraction. Items we can purchase. That is where the foundation comes in. They help us with those items and the things that we need for those patients.
Dave: How can somebody help with the foundation?
Sunny: We are actually selling T-shirts. … Swing on into our gift shop and it will be ready for you.
Dave: STHfoundation.org/autism is the website. The question is: Where does this money go? Are you using this money to purchase and help with these centers?
Cindy: Our Parenting Center is the next location that is earning the designation for their staff training. The foundation is supporting that initiative. Also, when I mentioned the noise-canceling earphones, the fixtures they can play with, the items to distract their attention – either paintings on the wall or books to look at – those are the things that the foundation helps support.
And every two years we are redesignated. So, the Pediatric ICU and the Pediatric ED are currently going through a redesignation. The clinics just went through their redesignation. That is where the foundation comes in as well. They support that initiative and pay for that.
Dave: I learned that today. I didn’t know that had to happen every two years. I thought once you got it, you got it. You were good.
Sunny: A lot of it, too -- what we’re raising money for – is that the designation is the baseline foundation for your training, right? And so, what we want to make sure we are doing is, we are increasing their training but also outreaching that training to other facilities in our system.
When you think about autism, a lot of people think about just kiddos. But it’s in adults, too, and what studies have shown is that adults are not seeking health services. When they transition from the pediatric world to an adult, they are not getting that care. We want to make sure that we also are including that population as well.
So, our funds over time are going to, again, make sure we keep those designation. In order to keep that designation, you have to have a minimum of 80% staff trained. We have 100%, so that is something to note. I am super proud of that. The more we grow, the more we are going to need those resources which, unfortunately, requires funds to do. So, that is our main goal. Not just to install at the pediatric room but also make sure that every service, wherever that individual comes in, they will be well taken care of.
Dave: Fantastic, if somebody is looking for information, I am assuming we can send them to sthfoundation.org. Is that correct?
Sunny: Yes.
Tim: I have one question for you guys. What is our real take-home message that we want our community to know about? What is our commitment to autism? What are we trying to say here?
Sunny: Well, we want to make sure we are moving from the awareness. Awareness is more, ‘Yes, we know about it’ – moving from that to acceptance. That is a more action role. That action role is an inclusiveness.
So, when we’re doing that, we want to make sure we are embracing the individual, we are promoting knowledge, we’re seeking knowledge, as well as accepting and being aware of autism spectrum. So, it requires many things, not just one step.
Tim: Wow, that is awesome. Dr. McDaniel and Cindy, I thank you for coming on. This was very, very informative today. Thanks.
Dave: Yes, thanks, everybody. Tim, thank you. We covered a lot of ground here this morning.