How Can Sickle Cell Warriors Smoothly Transition to Adult Care?
More Programs and Publications Featuring Maya Bloomberg
In this program:
Sickle cell disease warriors eventually must transition from pediatric care to adult care. Hematology practice nurse Maya Bloomberg shares care issues to be on the alert for and key concepts to discuss with pediatric SCD patients before they transition to adult care.
Transcript
Ariqa Everett:
So we want to continue the conversation and want you to share and talk about that transition period from the pediatric care to the adult care for those with sickle cell disease.
Maya, could you share other transition training programs or maybe road maps that can help prepare patients for this kind of transition?
Maya Bloomberg, APRN:
There are definitely road maps, because we know this transition period, there's a spike in mortality or a spike in death rates. It's a very delicate time, and there are a lot of reasons for that. The whole treatment landscape or just the insurance landscape from pediatrics to adult is very complex. So if you don't understand the logistics of that or know how to find an adult provider, there are a lot of places where patients can kind of slip through the cracks; and, unfortunately, at the risk of their own health, so there are different transition programs that are in place, some of them start...most,,so I would say start at around 16 years of age, there are some that start as early as 12, and it's essentially an outline which covers different topics that you want to incorporate the patient in at each of their clinic visits. So transitioning is not going to happen in one visit, the fact that it can start as early as 12, and a patient's not transitioned anywhere from 18 to 21, you can imagine there's a ton of information that needs to be discussed at these visits. So there are different road maps that are in place, and the thought is is that you introduce different concepts at each appointment. So what's your diagnosis, what's your genome type? What do you do, what are your triggers? What do you do in the events of an emergency, what's your insurance? Do you know how to get a referral? So there are a lot of different topics that are discussed and covered using this road map to ultimately prepare patients for the best chances of succeeding in transitioning.
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