WASHINGTON, DC — W. Carl Cooley, MD, of Concord, NH, was named the 2005 recipient of the "Director's Award" presented annually at the Maternal and Child Health Bureau Federal/State Partnership Meeting held at the Omni Shoreham Hotel on October 18th. He was nominated by Charles Onufer, MD, director, Illinois Title V Program for Children with Special Health Care Needs, University of Illinois at Chicago, "in recognition of contributions made to the health of infants, mothers, children, adolescents and children with special needs."

Dr. Cooley is the medical director of Crotched Mountain Foundation and Rehabilitation Center in Greenfield, NH, where he also serves as co-director of the Center for Medical Home Improvement. He received a BA degree from Yale University in 1969 and a MD degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1973. Dr. Cooley completed his pediatric residency at the University of Michigan in 1976. Currently, he is an associate professor of pediatrics at Dartmouth Medical School. As a developmental pediatrician, Dr. Cooley has interests in Down syndrome, autism, and family resilience and adaptation to having a child with special needs. In 2001, he was named New Hampshire Pediatrician of the Year. Dr. Cooley is married and the father of three children, including a 21 year old daughter with Down syndrome.

Peter C. van Dyck, MD, MPH, associate administrator for maternal child health with the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration, (HRSA), presented the award. In his congratulatory remarks, he stated "Dr Cooley is a highly skilled developmental pediatrician, with outstanding academic and leadership abilities who has advanced the Medical Home concept across the United States with his creative and innovative strategies in promoting quality of health care for children with special health care needs."

Among his many accomplishments, Dr. Cooley established the Center for Medical Home Improvement in New Hampshire, which has developed many helpful materials that are used by Title V Children with Special Health Care Needs (CSHCN) Programs to guide families and professionals to enhance chronic disease management through quality health care measures in primary health care settings. One example of these efforts includes the development of a widely-adopted quality improvement methodology for primary care practices for the implementation of the medical home model in which primary care improvement teams include a physician leader, an office-based care coordinator, and parents of children and youth with special health care needs. Dr. Cooley also created and standardized a quality improvement instrument called the Medical Home Index to measure the "medical homeness" of individual practices. The Medical Home Index has been accepted across the United States and in other countries as the gold standard for assessing Medical Homes in primary care pediatric practices.

Crotched Mountain is a charitable organization employing more than 900 people. Its mission is to serve individuals with disabilities and their families, embracing personal choice and development, and building communities of mutual support. Crotched Mountain provides specialized education, rehabilitation, community, and residential support services for more than 2,000 consumers, including individuals with disabilities and the elderly, living in New England and New York. For more information about Crotched Mountain please visit their web site: www.crotchedmountain.org.