Calvin C.J. Sia
Encyclopedia
Calvin C.J. Sia is a primary care
pediatrician from Hawaii
who developed innovative programs to improve the quality of medical care for children in the United States and Asia. Two particular programs have been implemented throughout America: the Medical Home concept for primary care that has been promoted by the American Academy of Pediatrics
and the federal Emergency Medical Services for Children
program administered by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Health Resources and Services Administration
, Maternal and Child Health Bureau
. His Medical Home model for pediatric care and early childhood development began to take root in several Asian countries in 2003.
Sia is also creator of Hawaii Healthy Start home visiting program to prevent child abuse and neglect and co-founder of Hawaii's Zero to Three program and Healthy and Ready to Learn Center. In addition, he created the Variety School for learning disabled children. Sia, who has been a professor of Community Pediatrics at University of Hawaii, retired from his Honolulu-based medical practice in 1996, after almost 40 years of treating patients.
in Honolulu and a graduate of Dartmouth College
in 1950. He received his medical degree at Western Reserve University School of Medicine in 1955 and did a general rotating internship as a lieutenant in the U.S. Army Medical Corps at William Beaumont Army Hospital in El Paso, Texas from 1955-1956. Sia served his pediatric residency at Kauikeolani Children's Hospital in Honolulu. He received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from the University of Hawaii
in 1992.
This was the birth of the Medical Home concept for primary care, to which Sia attached the slogan, “Every Child Deserves Medical Home.” Under this idea, which the American Academy of Pediatrics later adopted as a policy statement, the medical care of all infants, children and adolescents should be accessible, continuous, comprehensive, family-centered, coordinated, compassionate, and culturally effective. It should be delivered or directed by well-trained physicians who provide primary care and help to manage and facilitate essentially all aspects of pediatric care. The physician should be known to the child and family and should be able to develop a partnership of mutual responsibility and trust with them. As Sia and his co-authors of a 2006 monograph on the medical home noted, this new model broadens the traditional focus on acute care to include prevention and well care at one end of the continuum and chronic care management of children with special health care needs at the other. One expert observed, for example, that for a child born with spina bifida
, Sia's Medical Home model calls for the family and its health care provider to compose a list of specialists and therapists who will be caring for the child and a timeline of anticipated surgeries and interventions. The aim is to have as few emergencies and unanticipated events as possible.
By 1984, Sia had begun to implement the Medical Home concept in Hawaii beginning with the Hawaii Healthy Start Home Visiting Program for the prevention of child abuse and neglect. A year later, the Hawaii Medical Association was awarded a grant from the U.S. Maternal and Child Health Bureau, under the Special Projects of Regional and National Significance (SPRANS) initiative, to train primary care physicians to provide a "medical home" for all children with special health care needs.
He launched the Hawaii Early Intervention Program for infants and toddlers in 1986 and also became actively involved with Hawaii’s Early Intervention Coordinating Council for Zero to Three, placing this under Hawaii’s Department of Health instead of Department of Education. The focus of this effort was to support the medical home system of care with prevention and early intervention programs.
From the early 1990s, Sia focused on implementing family-centered Medical Home as a comprehensive system of care for early childhood. The pace of activity led to his decision to close his private medical practice in 1996 so he could devote his time as principal investigator on various early childhood grant projects promoting the Medical Home and integrated system of care. He launched several initiatives, including a MCHB Health Education Collaboration grant in support of interprofessional training in early childhood, Carnegie Corporation of New York
's Starting Point early childhood planning grant, and Consuelo Foundation of Hawaii's Healthy and Ready to Learn grant – all with the emphasis on integrating the continuum of care of the Medical Home with other health, family, and community services from a holistic approach. Sia, who served as chairman of the American Medical Association's Section Council on Pediatrics and other AMA- and AAP-related posts, used those platforms and his network of contacts with other groups to help introduce the Medical Home concept into the care of adults as well as children, although his primary focus has remained on pediatric care. The term Medical Home now regularly shows up in the literature of parent groups such as Family Voices, in family practice journals and on the websites of state public health and medical agencies.
Beginning in 2000, Sia expanded his efforts related to early child development and the Medical Home to Asia. In 2003, he created the Asia-US Partnership, a think tank based at the University of Hawaii medical school whose mission is to improve child health in Asia and the United States through cross-cultural
exchanges with leaders in pediatrics. That same year, Sia initiated and chaired the first of several AUSP Early Child Development and Primary Care conferences, bringing together pediatric and early childhood development experts from Asia and the United States to translate the science of early child development into policy and action. Participants have come from China (Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong), the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand and the United States. According to conference reports, these international exchanges have stimulated translation of the science on early child development and primary care into action programs in the broad areas of advocacy, service delivery, research, and training among the Asian early childhood professionals leadership. Sia has continued to serve as co-chairman of these events, including the sixth international conference, held in the Philippines capital of Manila, in May 2011. After hosting the earliest AUSP conferences in Hawaii, Sia decided to move the 2009 event to Shanghai and tapped a team of Chinese doctors to serve as conference host, signaling what he called a new phase of activity aimed at developing greater shared leadership and stronger "country teams."
As the lead author of an often-cited article published by the journal Pediatrics in May 2004, Sia traced the development of the Medical Home concept.
While planting the seeds of the medical home concept in Hawaii in 1986, Sia embarked on a related advocacy campaign focused on emergency care for children. He worked closely with Senator Daniel Inouye
, whom he happened to meet on a flight to Washington, D.C., to enact a National Emergency Medical Services for Children System (EMSC) demonstration grant program to address acute injuries, illnesses and other childhood crises. States receiving these demonstration grants established an emergency medical care service system for children with upgrading first responders and emergency departments training and equipment for children. Hawaii received one of the first grants to initiate its own emergency care system for children that improved care coordination with the primary care physician, the medical home. EMSC is now an established statewide system of care for children in all 50 states and territories.
Sia married Katherine Li Sia in 1951. Sia has three sons, Richard H.P. Sia, a journalist; Jeffrey H.K. Sia, a Honolulu-based attorney and former president of the Hawaii State Bar Association; and Dr. Michael H.T. Sia, a pediatrician and chairman of Pediatrics at Kapiolani Medical Center for Women and Children; and six grandchildren.
Primary care
Primary care is the term for the health services by providers who act as the principal point of consultation for patients within a health care system...
pediatrician from Hawaii
Hawaii
Hawaii is the newest of the 50 U.S. states , and is the only U.S. state made up entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean, southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of...
who developed innovative programs to improve the quality of medical care for children in the United States and Asia. Two particular programs have been implemented throughout America: the Medical Home concept for primary care that has been promoted by the American Academy of Pediatrics
American Academy of Pediatrics
The American Academy of Pediatrics is the major professional association of pediatricians in the United States. The AAP was founded in 1930 by 35 pediatricians to address pediatric healthcare standards. It currently has 60,000 members in primary care and sub-specialist areas...
and the federal Emergency Medical Services for Children
Emergency Medical Services for Children
Administered by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Health Resources and Services Administration , Maternal and Child Health Bureau , the Emergency Medical Services for Children Program is a national initiative designed to reduce child and youth disability and death due to severe...
program administered by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Health Resources and Services Administration
Health Resources and Services Administration
The Health Resources and Services Administration , is an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services located in Rockville, Maryland...
, Maternal and Child Health Bureau
Maternal and Child Health Bureau
- Key Facts :• HRSA’s Maternal and Child Health Bureau administers programs that serve more than 34 million women, infants and children each year. About 60 percent of U.S. women who give birth receive services through HRSA-supported programs....
. His Medical Home model for pediatric care and early childhood development began to take root in several Asian countries in 2003.
Sia is also creator of Hawaii Healthy Start home visiting program to prevent child abuse and neglect and co-founder of Hawaii's Zero to Three program and Healthy and Ready to Learn Center. In addition, he created the Variety School for learning disabled children. Sia, who has been a professor of Community Pediatrics at University of Hawaii, retired from his Honolulu-based medical practice in 1996, after almost 40 years of treating patients.
Education
Sia is a 1945 graduate of Punahou SchoolPunahou School
Punahou School, once known as Oahu College, is a private, co-educational, college preparatory school located in Honolulu CDP, City and County of Honolulu in the U.S. State of Hawaii...
in Honolulu and a graduate of Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College is a private, Ivy League university in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. The institution comprises a liberal arts college, Dartmouth Medical School, Thayer School of Engineering, and the Tuck School of Business, as well as 19 graduate programs in the arts and sciences...
in 1950. He received his medical degree at Western Reserve University School of Medicine in 1955 and did a general rotating internship as a lieutenant in the U.S. Army Medical Corps at William Beaumont Army Hospital in El Paso, Texas from 1955-1956. Sia served his pediatric residency at Kauikeolani Children's Hospital in Honolulu. He received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from the University of Hawaii
University of Hawaii
The University of Hawaii System, formally the University of Hawaii and popularly known as UH, is a public, co-educational college and university system that confers associate, bachelor, master, and doctoral degrees through three university campuses, seven community college campuses, an employment...
in 1992.
Public Service
Among the early cadre of American Academy of Pediatrics consultants for Head Start and Parent Child Centers in Hawaii in the 1960s, Sia helped established the Variety School for Learning Disabilities in 1967. In 1978, he brought together representatives from the Hawaii AAP Chapter, the University of Hawaii John A. Burns School of Medicine, the Hawaii Medical Association, and Kapiolani Medical Center for Women and Children to develop a Child Health Plan for Hawaii.This was the birth of the Medical Home concept for primary care, to which Sia attached the slogan, “Every Child Deserves Medical Home.” Under this idea, which the American Academy of Pediatrics later adopted as a policy statement, the medical care of all infants, children and adolescents should be accessible, continuous, comprehensive, family-centered, coordinated, compassionate, and culturally effective. It should be delivered or directed by well-trained physicians who provide primary care and help to manage and facilitate essentially all aspects of pediatric care. The physician should be known to the child and family and should be able to develop a partnership of mutual responsibility and trust with them. As Sia and his co-authors of a 2006 monograph on the medical home noted, this new model broadens the traditional focus on acute care to include prevention and well care at one end of the continuum and chronic care management of children with special health care needs at the other. One expert observed, for example, that for a child born with spina bifida
Spina bifida
Spina bifida is a developmental congenital disorder caused by the incomplete closing of the embryonic neural tube. Some vertebrae overlying the spinal cord are not fully formed and remain unfused and open. If the opening is large enough, this allows a portion of the spinal cord to protrude through...
, Sia's Medical Home model calls for the family and its health care provider to compose a list of specialists and therapists who will be caring for the child and a timeline of anticipated surgeries and interventions. The aim is to have as few emergencies and unanticipated events as possible.
By 1984, Sia had begun to implement the Medical Home concept in Hawaii beginning with the Hawaii Healthy Start Home Visiting Program for the prevention of child abuse and neglect. A year later, the Hawaii Medical Association was awarded a grant from the U.S. Maternal and Child Health Bureau, under the Special Projects of Regional and National Significance (SPRANS) initiative, to train primary care physicians to provide a "medical home" for all children with special health care needs.
He launched the Hawaii Early Intervention Program for infants and toddlers in 1986 and also became actively involved with Hawaii’s Early Intervention Coordinating Council for Zero to Three, placing this under Hawaii’s Department of Health instead of Department of Education. The focus of this effort was to support the medical home system of care with prevention and early intervention programs.
From the early 1990s, Sia focused on implementing family-centered Medical Home as a comprehensive system of care for early childhood. The pace of activity led to his decision to close his private medical practice in 1996 so he could devote his time as principal investigator on various early childhood grant projects promoting the Medical Home and integrated system of care. He launched several initiatives, including a MCHB Health Education Collaboration grant in support of interprofessional training in early childhood, Carnegie Corporation of New York
Carnegie Corporation of New York
Carnegie Corporation of New York, which was established by Andrew Carnegie in 1911 "to promote the advancement and diffusion of knowledge and understanding," is one of the oldest, largest and most influential of American foundations...
's Starting Point early childhood planning grant, and Consuelo Foundation of Hawaii's Healthy and Ready to Learn grant – all with the emphasis on integrating the continuum of care of the Medical Home with other health, family, and community services from a holistic approach. Sia, who served as chairman of the American Medical Association's Section Council on Pediatrics and other AMA- and AAP-related posts, used those platforms and his network of contacts with other groups to help introduce the Medical Home concept into the care of adults as well as children, although his primary focus has remained on pediatric care. The term Medical Home now regularly shows up in the literature of parent groups such as Family Voices, in family practice journals and on the websites of state public health and medical agencies.
Beginning in 2000, Sia expanded his efforts related to early child development and the Medical Home to Asia. In 2003, he created the Asia-US Partnership, a think tank based at the University of Hawaii medical school whose mission is to improve child health in Asia and the United States through cross-cultural
exchanges with leaders in pediatrics. That same year, Sia initiated and chaired the first of several AUSP Early Child Development and Primary Care conferences, bringing together pediatric and early childhood development experts from Asia and the United States to translate the science of early child development into policy and action. Participants have come from China (Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong), the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand and the United States. According to conference reports, these international exchanges have stimulated translation of the science on early child development and primary care into action programs in the broad areas of advocacy, service delivery, research, and training among the Asian early childhood professionals leadership. Sia has continued to serve as co-chairman of these events, including the sixth international conference, held in the Philippines capital of Manila, in May 2011. After hosting the earliest AUSP conferences in Hawaii, Sia decided to move the 2009 event to Shanghai and tapped a team of Chinese doctors to serve as conference host, signaling what he called a new phase of activity aimed at developing greater shared leadership and stronger "country teams."
As the lead author of an often-cited article published by the journal Pediatrics in May 2004, Sia traced the development of the Medical Home concept.
While planting the seeds of the medical home concept in Hawaii in 1986, Sia embarked on a related advocacy campaign focused on emergency care for children. He worked closely with Senator Daniel Inouye
Daniel Inouye
Daniel Ken "Dan" Inouye is the senior United States Senator from Hawaii, a member of the Democratic Party, and the President pro tempore of the United States Senate making him the highest-ranking Asian American politician in American history. Inouye is the chairman of the United States Senate...
, whom he happened to meet on a flight to Washington, D.C., to enact a National Emergency Medical Services for Children System (EMSC) demonstration grant program to address acute injuries, illnesses and other childhood crises. States receiving these demonstration grants established an emergency medical care service system for children with upgrading first responders and emergency departments training and equipment for children. Hawaii received one of the first grants to initiate its own emergency care system for children that improved care coordination with the primary care physician, the medical home. EMSC is now an established statewide system of care for children in all 50 states and territories.
Honors and Awards
Several national and state organizations have recognized Sia for developing innovative and responsive family-centered grassroots services. Among the awards he has received are these:- 2010 U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration 75th Anniversary Director's Award to Champions In The Field Of Maternal And Child Health In The States And Jurisdictions.
- 2009 Punahou School's Samuel Chapman Award recognizing an individual who has made outstanding contributions in the fields of public service, humanitarian or charitable efforts, arts, letters or sciences, which have gained the awardee significant national or international recognition.
- 2005 Establishment of the Calvin C.J. Sia Community Pediatrics & Medical Home Leadership & Advocacy Award, awarded annually by American Academy of Pediatrics, by Annie E. Dyson Foundation Initiatives, Chicago, IL. The foundation also created the Calvin C.J. Sia Endowment to support the award.
- 2001 American Academy of Pediatrics, Clifford G. Grulee Award: Recognition of Outstanding Services to the Academy beyond that required of the elected leadership.
- 2001 American Academy of Pediatrics, Job Lewis Smith Award in Community Pediatrics to an individual who has demonstrated outstanding leadership in Community Pediatrics.
- 2001 Establishment of the Calvin C.J. Sia MD Endowment by the Kapiolani Health Foundation to support people or organizations dedicated to improving the health and development of Hawaii's children.
- 1998 The American Medical Association Benjamin Rush Award, given to an individual who has made an outstanding contribution to the community for citizenship and public service above and beyond the call of duty as a practicing physician, presented at AMA Interim House of Delegates meeting.
- 1998 The First Emergency Medical Service for Children National Heroes Lifetime Achievement Award: for an individual who has dedicated himself to transforming the way emergency medical care is provided for children throughout the United States.National Congress on Childhood Emergencies, MCHB, HRSA, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the EMSC National Resource Center, Washington, DC.
- 1997 Dr. Calvin Sia Day in Hawaii, proclaimed by Governor Benjamin Cayetano for Outstanding Service to his Profession and to the People of our State and Nation, July 28, 1997.
- 1997 National Governors Association Private Citizens Award for Distinguished Service to State Government in Support of his Work with “Family-centered, preventive approaches to Health Care to Ensure a Child’s Healthy Development, awarded at NGA convention in Las Vegas, NV.
- 1996 Federal Interagency Coordination Council Achievement Award for Outstanding Contribution to Improving Services to Children & Families through Interagency Collaboration, Washington, DC.
- 1996 March of Dimes, Jonas Salk Memorial Award 1996 for Achievement in Maternal and Child Health.
- 1992 Variety Clubs International Sir James Carreras Award recognizing the Physician who has Done Outstanding Work in the Field of Pediatrics Medicine, New York, NY.
- 1992 American Medical Association and American Academy of Pediatrics Abraham Jacobi Award in Recognition of Significant Contributions in Pediatrics in the Tradition of Abraham Jacobi, Father of American Pediatrics, New York, NY.
- 1992 Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters, University of Hawaii.
- 1991 Third C. Henry Kempe Memorial Award, The C. Henry Kempe National Center for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect, Denver, CO.
- 1988 Commissioner’s Award for Outstanding Leadership and Service in the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect, Dept. of Health & Human Services, Office of Human Development, Administration for Children, Youth & Families, Washington, DC.
- 1979 Hawaii Medical Association's Physician of the Year Award.
Personal life
Sia was born in Beijing, China to Dr. Richard Ho Ping Sia, a former Rockefeller Institute researcher whose work laid the groundwork for the Avery–MacLeod–McCarty experiment on DNA and bacterial transformation and Mary Li Sia, a Honolulu-born author of several Chinese cookbooks. Sia grew up in Hawaii, where his family settled in 1939 after living under Japanese occupation for nearly two years.Sia married Katherine Li Sia in 1951. Sia has three sons, Richard H.P. Sia, a journalist; Jeffrey H.K. Sia, a Honolulu-based attorney and former president of the Hawaii State Bar Association; and Dr. Michael H.T. Sia, a pediatrician and chairman of Pediatrics at Kapiolani Medical Center for Women and Children; and six grandchildren.
External links
- Palfrey, Judith. Child Health in America: Making a Difference Through Advocacy. Johns Hopkins University Press, Oct. 31, 2006, pp. 40-43.