Transitioning Youth to an Adult Health Care Clinician
For use by Pediatric, Family Medicine, and Med-Peds Clinicians
Transition and Care Policy/Guide
Creating a written transition and care policy/guide is the first element in the Six Core Elements of Health Care Transition™ (HCT). The transition and care policy/guide is intended to be shared with youth and parents/caregivers early in adolescence and periodically repeated. Developed by your practice or health system, with input from youth and parents/caregivers and staff, the policy/guide formalizes the practice/system approach to HCT. It represents a consensus among the practice staff and youth and parents/caregivers about the HCT approach involved. It can also represent structure for evaluation. It should be at the appropriate reading level, offered in languages common among your clinic population, and concise (no more than one page).
Sample Tools
Implementation
Read more information on the QI framework and methods in our Quality Improvement Primer.
Implementation: Transition and Care Policy/Guide
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.