*Purpose: The transition process for young adult solid organ transplant patient is an important clinical milestone in a transplant patient’s life. Evidenced based research demonstrates that worse outcomes including graft failure, rejection, and death occur within a few years of transition to an adult program.

*Methods: Our team developed a transition program that involved all pediatric solid organ transplant patients including heart, liver, and kidney recipients who are approaching transition to the adult program in the next three years or 18 to 21 years of age. Team members include a transplant coordinator, transplant physician, psychologist, neuropsychologist, transplant pharmacist, and psychiatrist. Each program holds is respective transition clinics monthly through telehealth visits that last 1.5 to 2 hours per session. During these visits, multiple surveys are reviewed with the patient, including quality of life, medication adherence, psychosocial assessment, and health literacy testing. Towards the end of the visit, our transplant pharmacist joins and answers any additional transplant medication related questions that the patients may have. A unique aspect of our program is the participation of the designated adult transplant coordinator who joins the visit and presents an overview of the adult transplant service, highlighting similarities and differences of the pediatric and adult services and serving as a liaison and familiar face for the patients when the transition eventually occurs.

*Results: We launched our transition of care clinic in January 2021 and plan to re-administer the same surveys and health literacy tests to gauge efficacy and impact of the program. We are in the process of data gathering to test this hypothesis and present our results to the pediatric transplant community.

*Conclusions: We believe that having a structured transition process alleviates fears related to transitioning to an adult program. Given the complexities of our health systems, by screening and having transition clinic visits prior to a visit with the adult program, our young adults are equipped with the tools and knowledge to prepare them for a successful transition. By involving our young adults in the medical decision making process, they can become more independent and empowered to take care of themselves with the full support of a medical team dedicated to ensuring their transition is successful. Furthermore, mental health support is of paramount importance and plays a role in ensuring medication compliance and positive health behaviors. We hope that through these interventions our patients will benefit from better health care outcome including fewer hospitalizations, fewer rejection episodes, and avoidance of the need for re-listing for transplant.

« Back to 2022 American Transplant Congress