Integrating Young Adults into Adult Health Care
For use by Internal Medicine, Family Medicine, and Med-Peds Clinicians
Initial Visits
Initial visits is the fifth element in the Six Core Elements of Health Care Transition™ (HCT). Following review of the transfer package, the initial appointment should address any concerns that the young adult may have in transferring to a new adult clinician and the distinctions between pediatric and adult care. Specifically, it is important to discuss confidentiality, access to information, and shared decision-making and to learn how to best communicate with the young adult between visits. Over the next few visits, the clinician should work with the young adult to assess and strengthen self-care skills.
Implementation
Read more information on the QI framework and methods in our Quality Improvement Primer.
Implementation: Initial Visits
For each core element, we have created an implementation guide to assist you in establishing a structured transition approach in your practice/clinic/health system. It offers quality improvement (QI) guidance on what information and processes should be considered when undertaking each core element, with examples from different care settings or patient populations.
Before starting, we recommend you read How to Implement the Six Core Element of Health Care Transition, which provides a set of practical start-up steps and tips to guide your health care transition approach. In addition, if you have more questions about the QI aspects of this implementation guide, there are links within it to a Quality Improvement Primer that offers further explanations for common examples of QI tools.