Healthcare Transition: An Overview and Introduction

Abstract

Health-care transition is a field of practice, research, system change, and policy in pediatric and child health that is an evolution of the scientific and clinical advances in the care practices for children born and diagnosed with a long-term condition. These advances have contributed to the improvement in the survival rates of this population of children whose lifespan now extend into adulthood and thereby require widespread and a broad range of changes in the pediatric and adult systems of care. This chapter provides a succinct historic overview of the development and notable benchmarks of the field of health-care transition practice and research that has emerged to address the needs of this population, which heretofore were not addressed given their previous rates of survival just a few decades ago. Importantly, precursor models of nursing practice have influenced and contributed to contemporary nursing practice and research that endeavors to develop and implement nurse-led models of care for children, adolescents, and young adults who are ill and those with long-term conditions. These early models of care and practices included primary nursing, care coordination, and family-centered care. Health-care transition is a field of practice wherein nurses are actively involved as clinical specialists, leaders in model development and testing, and as investigators contributing to the body of knowledge and science. In this textbook, the influence and involvement of nursing in health-care transition is evident with the presentation of the work, efforts, and contributions of nursing leaders in the field of health-care transition.