Got Transition Anticipates ACP Pediatric to Adult Care Transition Tools

April 20, 2016

In May this year, the American College of Physicians (ACP) will be releasing new transition readiness/self-care assessment and medical summary tools modeled after Got Transition's "Six Core Elements of Health Care Transition."

The goals of a successful transition from pediatric to adult health care are to ensure continuity of care, exchange of medical information, and engagement of young adult patients in their own care. ACP's initiative offers clinicians a standardized approach to improve care transitions for young adults with specific chronic conditions. New condition-specific transition tools are available, including 1) a transition readiness assessment (for use in pediatric care), a self-care assessment (for use in adult care), and a medical summary/transfer record containing the essential information needed for communication between pediatric and adult clinicians for practices. These tools were developed for use in general and specialty practices caring for transitioning patients with the following conditions:

• General Internal Medicine
  • Intellectual/Developmental Disabilities
  • Physical Disabilities
• Cardiology
  • Congenital Heart Disease
• Endocrinology
  • Type 1 Diabetes
  • Turner Syndrome
  • Growth Hormone Deficiency
• Hematology
  • General Hematology
  • Sickle Cell Anemia
  • Hemophilia
• Nephrology
  • Chronic Kidney Disease
• Rheumatology
  • Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis
  • Systemic Lupus Erythematosus

ACP's Council on Subspecialty Societies (CSS) partnered with Got Transition, the federally funded national resource center, to customize their tested transition process, "Six Core Elements of Health Care Transition." The Six Core Elements address all three phases of transition: preparation, transfer and integration into adult health care. This nationally recognized approach is aligned with the 2011 AAP/AAFP/ACP Clinical Report on Transition and includes a package of sample tools designed for internal medicine practices integrating new young adults into their care and another package for family medicine and Med-Peds practices transitioning youth to an adult approach to care.

Each participating ACP specialty society formed their own subgroup with CSS members, pediatric representatives, and disability organizations customized and approved a set of transition tools. The transition readiness assessment tool is intended for pediatric providers to begin the conversation about the youth's needed skills to manage their health and health care. The medical summary and emergency care plan is a template that can be shared with the youth and family and sent by the pediatric provider to the receiving adult provider. The self care assessment tool is intended for use by adult providers to continue building health literacy skills to successfully manage their condition. In the future, additional specialty societies will be submitting their condition-specific transition tools.