Patience White, M.A., M.D., co-director of Got Transition and emeritus professor of medicine and of pediatrics at the GW School of Medicine and Health Sciences, co-led the American College of Physicians (ACP) Pediatric to Adult Care Transitions Initiative, a project which created guidelines and tools for pediatric-to-adult health care transitions.
“These are important tools adult providers have been asking for. Oftentimes, young adults are not well prepared to enter the adult health care system — once they turn 18, they have difficulty getting their own prescriptions, navigating the adult health system, providing correct information about their health care to their new provider, and sometimes those with a chronic illness are the least prepared,” said White. “This is a major step forward in giving adult providers what they need to provide high-value care. This project answers their concerns in a very concrete way.”
Announced at the ACP Internal Medicine Meeting 2016, the toolkit contains disease/condition-specific tools developed by primary care internal medicine and subspecialties to assist physicians in transitioning young adults with chronic diseases/conditions into adult care settings. Based on the joint clinical recommendations from the American Academy of Pediatrics, American Academy of Family Physicians, and ACP, Got Transition/Center for Health Care Transition Improvement developed an evidence-informed model, Six Core Elements of Health Care Transitions, which includes free sample tools that clinicians can download and implement in their offices. These core elements were used as a basis for the development of disease-specific tools through the ACP Pediatric to Adult Care Transitions Initiative.
The original tools were developed by Got Transition and then tested through a learning collaboration between GW, Children’s National Health System, Howard University, and Georgetown University. This created a foundation of evidence in order to create the new guidelines and tools by the ACP.
“The beauty of this is that adult providers did this in conjunction with their pediatric colleagues,” said White. “I am grateful to GW for supporting this work, which has now come to fruition.”
To learn more about the ACP Pediatric to Adult Care Transitions Initiative, please visit the American College of Physicians.
