Academics / Undergraduate Program / Client Project Challenge / ProjectLurie’s Optimized Autism Referral Process
December 15, 2025
Client: Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago
Student Team: Kelsey Nader, Will Benford, Tom Langford, Siqi Zhao
Key Client Contacts: Joshua Ewen, Larry Gray, and Sean McWeeny
Faculty Advisor: Sanjay Mehrotra
Overview
Lurie Children’s is working to address a persistent bottleneck in the autism diagnosis pipeline for preschool-aged children. Even after meaningful progress in recent years, families may still face diagnostic waits of roughly 6–8 months, with demand outpacing capacity. With more than 500 children on the waitlist and fewer than 30 appointments per week, the system strain is not abstract—it affects access to early intervention services and increases burden on families, pediatricians, and specialty teams.
What the team did
Over 10 weeks, the student team conducted 15 meetings and interviews with pediatricians and hospital administrators and iterated on multiple process maps to make the end-to-end pathway visible—from primary care screening through specialist evaluation. Their analysis highlighted key drivers of delay, including: (1) resource constraints; (2) fragmentation across the regional referral landscape; (3) “obvious” cases still requiring lengthy, specialist-administered diagnostic appointments; and (4) ambiguity introduced by current screening practices and uneven adoption of more informative tools.
Recommendations (high level)
The team proposed a three-part solution set—each component actionable on its own, and collectively designed to reduce wait times while maintaining clinical quality.
- Strengthen upstream screening to improve triage and shorten specialist time where appropriate.
The team recommends expanding practical use of additional screening tools (such as RITA-T and CARS) alongside the M-CHAT. - Add a telehealth triage layer.
To improve early signal quality (and reduce avoidable full evaluations), the team proposed a structured telehealth screening step to collect standardized observations and summaries before specialist visits. Beyond triage value, this approach can also strengthen scheduling accuracy and improve the consistency of information arriving with referrals. - Explore regional coordination through waitlist transparency and reduced duplication.
Recognizing that families often pursue multiple systems simultaneously, the team proposed a longer-term concept: a centralized queue or “waitlist transparency” platform spanning major Chicagoland providers to reduce duplicate entries and administrative drag.
Joshua Ewen, Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics Division Head, Lurie Children’s Hospital:
“Several of the students’ ideas were very interesting and potentially impactful. This was a great first step. We will definitely take the students’ ideas into account. It was great to work with the student team. ”
Dr. Larry Gray:
“Kelsey, Siqi, Will, and Tom came prepared, asked the right questions, and took the time to understand how autism screening and referrals actually work. Their process-focused approach and practical recommendations can help clinicians and specialty teams align on what information is most useful upstream—so families can reach the right care sooner.”
For more information about Lurie Children’s Hospital, see the website.