Preparing Youth for Adult Care
Successfully transitioning youth with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) from child-centred to adult-centred healthcare systems is key to preventing harmful effects on their health and life outcomes. However, an agreed upon process for transitioning youth to adult care does not exist in Canada.
Starting in 2020, Dr. Eric Benchimol, Dr. Natasha Bollegala, Dr. Melanie Barwick, at the University of Toronto, and Dr. Nancy Fu, at the University of British Columbia, are leading the design and review of a process that supports youth as they transition to adult care.
Support for youth transitioning out of a child-centred healthcare setting includes:
- tools and skills to communicate on their own to their healthcare team;
- confidence to ask for what they need;
- knowledge to understand the adult-centred healthcare system; and
- the building of a good relationship with their healthcare team in the adult-care setting.
In addition, a national transition care plan provides an opportunity to collect data about the best way to deliver transition services, with the goal of improving healthcare across Canada.
What is a working group?
A group of experts gather together to answer and report on a specific question, and make recommendations.
The team organized a working group of national and international experts, including pediatric and adult gastroenterologists, IBD nurses, an implementation scientist, patient partners, parents, caregivers, child and adolescent psychologists, and other transition care experts who:
- designed the transition care plan;
- identified metrics and outcomes that should be collected in the pilot test to determine how well the plan works; and
- developed a process to introduce the transition care plan in clinics across Canada.
The finalized transition care plan will undergo pilot testing at IBD Centres of Excellence across the country.
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Contact Information
To learn more about the PACE network, please contact research@crohnsandcolitis.ca.
The PACE network is supported by Crohn’s and Colitis Canada and our funding partners: