Defining Successful Transition: Adult Provider Perspective

Abstract

A successful transition for an adolescent or young adult with special health-care needs (AYASHCN) is not achieved just because that young adult has established with an adult primary care team. Many times transition fails either at the time of the initial appointment with an adult health-care team or shortly thereafter. In trying to define a successful transition from the perspective of adult providers receiving an AYASHCN, one needs only to look at the factors that adult providers value in all of their patient-physician relationships. To an adult provider, transition is successful when the AYASHCN has integrated into the adult practice, has come to trust the adult health-care team, and ideally has become an active partner in managing their health care. Additionally, because AYASHCN do have complex care needs, transition can be considered successful only when the relationships and interactions between the adult primary care medical home and the various subspecialists involved in the patient’s care function collaboratively, with good communication and with respect for the role of the primary care medical home as the coordinator and manager for the patient’s care as a whole.