Supporting Adolescents’ Transition From Pediatric to Adult Care (Podcast)

The 2016 National Survey of Children’s Health estimated that 85% of youths aged 12 to 17 did not receive adequate preparation for their transition from pediatric to adult care.

“There’s a lot of apprehension, and I think it’s due to a lack of process being in place,” says Deepak Lachhwani, MD, a pediatric epileptologist in Cleveland Clinic’s Charles Shor Epilepsy Center. Cleveland Clinic has developed a formal transition process and applied it to the neurological patient population as one of seven pilot areas.

In the latest episode of Cleveland Clinic’s Neuro Pathways podcast, Dr. Lachhwani discusses the program and care transition along with colleagues Tatiana Falcone, MD, a psychiatrist in the Epilepsy Center, and Carrie Cuomo, DNP, CPNP, Director of Advanced Practice Nursing in Cleveland Clinic’s Pediatric Institute. Collectively they address the following:

• The value of the federal government’s org website and its Six Core Elements of Health Care Transition™ to track, monitor and facilitate transitions
• Preparing pediatric patients and their families for the transition to adult care
• Repercussions for patients with chronic illnesses who don’t transition smoothly
• The medical and nonmedical needs of patients with epilepsy as they move to adult care
• The importance of a multidisciplinary approach to the transition process

Click the podcast player above to listen to the episode now, or read on for a short edited excerpt. Check out more Neuro Pathways episodes at clevelandclinic.org/neuropodcast or wherever you get your podcasts.

Excerpt from the podcast

Podcast host Glen Stevens, DO, PhD: What do we tell pediatricians out there? How can they get on board with this?

Dr. Lachhwani: Every patient-facing care provider needs to be involved from grassroots up, but also from leadership down…. I think the awareness has to be across the board. We really have to look at it as a programmatic change where the pool of care providers across the spectrum of different ages has to be ready.

I think we have to partner and educate our adult-care providers at every level that these youth are going to become adults one day and they cannot just hang on with a champion pediatrician who will continue to provide care for them. As a simple example, in the past five years the American Academy of Neurology has increased general neurology training positions by about 53% while increasing pediatric neurology training positions by only about 30%. The pool of pediatric providers is really never going to be as large as or increase as much as the adult care providers. I think it’s about time that we start partnering with and educating our adult-care providers so that there is no fear factor or apprehension factor about how we are going to take care of these older children. These are young adults who really need care of the highest quality. There is no reason why we cannot partner with our adult-care providers to make this happen.