Health Care for Foster Kids – California

Investigation: Health care system struggles to follow foster kids, By David Freed, July 23, 2011, North County Times: “San Marcos resident Patty Boles has taken in more than 100 children during three decades as a foster mom. She specializes in caring for the most medically fragile kids the system has to offer, and has adopted 10 of them. If there’s one thing Boles has learned over all those years, it’s that the system often does a poor job of meeting foster children’s health needs, thanks in no small measure to the often haphazard, increasingly archaic way their medical records are kept. “The way it works right now,” said Boles, president of the North County Foster Parents Association, “is a huge problem.” By law, each time a foster youth in California is relocated, a comprehensive paper file of his or her medical records —- a “health passport” —- is to be promptly forwarded to the new caregiver. But this doesn’t always happen, according to Boles and other foster care experts —- sometimes with potentially serious consequences…”