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Transition Care - Helping young people move successfully from child to adult health services
Transition Care - Helping young people move successfully from child to adult health services
What is Transition?
As a child becomes an adult they outgrow the expertise of children's (paediatric) health services and need to find an adult health provider that suits them.
When health professionals in the children's service start discussing "transition" they are talking about getting ready to identify and prepare a young person for adult health services.
Transition takes time. People should start to bring up the topic of transition when a client become a teenager. If this doesns't happen, parents and young people can ask their health team some questions about it.
To find out more about transition and the transition care program view our factsheets.
As children mature into young adults, they outgrow the expertise of children's services (paediatrics) and need to find an adult health service that suits them. The GMCT Transition Care Network aims to improved continuity of care for young people with chronic health as they move from children's (paediatric) to adult health services.
A Network Manager leads a team of three Transition Coordinators who are based at John Hunter Hospital in Newcastle, Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, and Westmead Hospital. These hospitals are affiliated with three children's hospitals (John Hunter Children's Hospital, Sydney Children's Hospital at Randwick and Children's Hospital Westmead). The Program extends across all Area Health Services in NSW.
To find out more about transition and the transition care program click on the pdf fact sheets highlighted below.
Help With Transition
The GMCT Transition Care program is currently developing a range of general tools to help young people, their parents and their health care professionals prepare for transition, these include;
A half day transition forum titled 'Different Countries, Same Challenges' was held at Northern Sydney Education Centre on Tuesday 17 February. Guest speakers included Helen Healy, Director of the Lifeskills and Wellness Institute, Bloorview Kids Rehab in Toronto Canada and Joanne Maxwell, Lifespan Project Coordinator, Toronto Rehabilitation Institute. The forum was well attended by over eighty professionals from a variety of backgrounds including paediatric and adult clinicians, health planners and managers. Links to the presentations are provided below.
Professor Kate Steinbeck provided an overview of the achievements of the GMCT Transition Network including the workforce project, development of models of care and an overview of current working groups. Kate referred to Transition as the most important of all clinical handovers and stressed the need for education and research that is interdisciplinary, connected with professional training organizations, involves Government Departments other than Health and Non Government Organisations who already are involved with youth.
Guest speakers Helen Healy and Joanne Maxwell, provided an overview of the Lifespan transition program developed at Bloorview Kids Rehab in Canada. Their paper titled 'Across The Lifespan - The Canadian Experience Of Developing A Lifespan Model Of Care' outlined the Growing up Ready model and listed a range of resources including the Timetable for Growing Up and Checklist for Developing the skills for Growing Up.
Kirrily Rodgers Acting Nurse Manager Executive, Prince of Wales Hospital, SESIAHSgave a paper titled 'Transitions in Care: One campus - two worlds'. Kirrily outlined key initiatives to improve processes for young people and their families transitioning from Sydney Children's Hospital (SCH) to the Prince of Wales Hospital adult service. They include formation of a Transition Care Working Group, development of an adolescent admission form (nursing) adolescent information brochure, Transition Care Guidelines, road map for clinic attendances, flow chart for planned and un-planned admissions, Medical Management Plan, formation of a SESIAHS Transition Care Committee and SCH School ward visits for adolescent in-patients.
Paul Isaac, SWAHS Aged and Chronic Care Network Operations Manager outlined priorities for the newly formed Sydney West Area Health Service Transition Working Group. Clinicians from a range of services such as cerebral palsy, intellectual disability, complex orthopaedic and rare genetic diseases have been invited to present to the Committee on issues around transition of young people moving from the Children's Hospital at Westmead to adult health services in SWAHS.
Dr Helen Somerville, Coordinator of the Disability Clinic at the Children's Hospital at Westmead, provided insights into the special needs of young people with intellectual disability (ID) transitioning to adult health services. These young people often have a range of co-morbid medical conditions such as epilepsy, orthopedic, vision/hearing and gastroenterological problems that require a multidisciplinary approach. Helen presented several case studies to highlight some of the difficulties including lack of knowledge about ID by adult health providers, communication barriers and consent issues.
