The computer program, designed in 1996 to be a secure location for foster children’s medical and school records and histories of neglect and abuse, is older than Google — and has had far fewer updates.
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By Colleen DeGuzman | KFF Health News
The decades-old system Texas foster care officials use to track and monitor the health records of the nearly 20,000 children in their custody is both outdated and unreliable — so much so, advocates say, that children have been harmed or put at risk. And those deficiencies persist despite a 2015 order by a federal judge that state leaders fix the system’s deficiencies.
“The frustration with IMPACT is well known,” said Texas state Rep. Gene Wu, a Democrat from Houston, referring to the aging software.
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That frustration, he added, is felt widely, from caseworkers to the court system, and boils down to a simple reality: IMPACT, Information Management Protecting Adults and Children in Texas, has been in place since 1996. It was designed to be a secure location for foster children’s records, including their health records and histories of neglect and abuse. But it doesn’t allow such information to be easily added by or shared among state and local health agencies, Medicaid, and even health care providers for the foster children in Texas’ care. Without that ability, children’s medical needs are getting lost in transit. After all, foster kids tend to move from place to place, home to home, and doctor to doctor.
A report released earlier this year by court-appointed monitors is full of harrowing stories and frightening missteps. For instance, in January 2022, a residential treatment center lost track of a 16-year-old boy’s medications. The supply ran out but the center “didn’t realize it.” The boy, who had a history of suicidal ideation, had to undergo an emergency psychiatric consult.
The report also told the story of a foster child who had to stay in a Dallas hotel because caseworkers were unable to find her a family. But no one knew she had prescription drugs in her backpack. When she was left alone in her room, she swallowed a handful of pills. She was taken to a behavioral hospital. As of September 2022, she was in juvenile detention.
Such accounts, and the concerns they trigger about the state’s broken foster care system, have begun to find traction this legislative session.
The state’s Department of Family and Protective Services, for instance, which oversees the system, has been called in for a series of status hearings regarding its overall progress. Those involved say lasting improvement has to start with modernizing DFPS’ technological infrastructure, but whether their pleas will be met with action is unclear.
