In addition, Dr. White continued, “some pediatric rheumatologists might say, ‘adult providers don’t know how to care for pediatric rheumatology [patients].’ Well, that may due to the adult providers not having received training in specific pediatric onset conditions. Communication between the pediatric and adult providers is key to a good transition experience for everyone. Trying to quickly build a new relationship with a new young adult patient to keep them engaged in their care and who has been used to the same pediatric provider for years is challenging, and the young adult and the adult provider need the pediatric provider’s support and availability to be a consultant to support the adult provider in the areas where they have little disease-specific experience.”
Dr. Jensen makes it a point to talk to his patients about health care transition in early adolescence, helps them set goals, and encourages them to “take more ownership in late adolescence for his or her own health: making their own appointments for follow-up visits, giving time to the patient in the room alone, and asking patients to maybe monitor medication adherence but not to lay the medications out for the patient in the morning,” he said. “When patients are given that opportunity, they may mature.”
Dr. Ronis, who is implementing a health care transition program at Children’s National Health System, thinks about health care transition as “a time where there’s risk for potentially worsening disease and negative outcomes due to perceived fragmentation of care. The more prepared we are and the more we prepare our patients to do this successfully, the better outcomes our patients will have.”
The Got Transition Center for Health Care Transition Improvement is funded by the Health Resources and Services Administration. The physicians interviewed for this story reported having no financial disclosures.