We aim to improve access to care, improve the hospital experiences, build on promising practices, and improve care coordination.

Our broader aims are to improve access to care, improve the hospital experiences, build on promising practices, and improve care coordination.

Autism New Jersey’s Advancing Healthcare Initiative seeks to be a collective voice that merges the expertise and needs of individuals with autism and their families, healthcare providers, behavior analytic providers, third-party payors, and governmental agencies to successfully advocate for and help implement empirically validated, effective, socially valid, and sustainable improvements that will directly impact the health and quality of life of individuals with autism.

To these ends, our current priorities include:

Increase Timeliness of Diagnostic Evaluations by Qualified Healthcare Providers
  • Continue workgroup of developmental pediatricians and other diagnosticians from across the state to discuss needs, barriers, and potential solutions



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  • Provide outreach and support to invested pediatricians from across the state to discuss needs, barriers and potential ways the specialty can support timely diagnoses
  • Investigate and implement more formal programs to support efficient and accurate autism diagnosis evaluations
Advance Autism-Friendly Best Practices
  • Work collaboratively with healthcare systems and autism service providers to research, develop, and disseminate a standard set of autism-friendly practices in healthcare
  • Create a healthcare hub for providers with recommendations and resources to implement autism-friendly practices, empirically-based trainings, and examples of compassionate and high-quality healthcare
  • Increase the number of autism-friendly healthcare providers listed in the Autism New Jersey referral database
  • Partner with external groups to support and promote the implementation of autism-friendly healthcare services and teaching individuals the skills needed to tolerate medical procedures
Broaden and Elevate the Conversation about Healthcare Needs and Solutions
  • Continue our survey of individuals and families on healthcare experiences and use results to help guide future activities
  • Lead the Autism New Jersey Healthcare Consortium, a statewide interdisciplinary group focused on improving healthcare access for autistic patients at a systemic level
  • Advance knowledge on the topic to all invested parties through interdisciplinary presentations, webinars and publications

For More Information

Lauren Frederick, M.A., BCBA, Clinical Director, lfrederick@autismnj.org
Suzanne Buchanan, Psy.D., BCBA-D, Executive Director, sbuchanan@autismnj.org