Identifying enablers of transitional services for young people

The Statewide Ado­les­cent Tran­si­tion Care Clin­i­cal Net­work (SATC­CN) is under­tak­ing a jour­ney map­ping project to iden­ti­fy the chal­lenges faced by young peo­ple with com­plex med­ical con­di­tions in tran­si­tion from pae­di­atric to adult care ser­vices in South Australia.

The project will identify:

• The needs of young peo­ple dur­ing transition 
• The ele­ments that con­tribute to a suc­cess­ful transition.
  

The project will be a qual­i­ta­tive study, util­is­ing health jour­ney map­ping tools and process­es, to bet­ter under­stand and doc­u­ment the com­plex needs of young adults tran­si­tion­ing from pae­di­atric to adult care ser­vices in South Australia. 

Health jour­ney map­ping is a rel­a­tive­ly new method­ol­o­gy in health­care research which focus­es on the expe­ri­ences, chal­lenges, strengths and respons­es of indi­vid­u­als in the con­text of their jour­ney through the health­care system. 

The research team is led by Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor Josephine Thomas Direc­tor of Physi­cian Edu­ca­tion, Cen­tral Ade­laide Local Health Net­work, who works at Mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary Ambu­la­to­ry Con­sult­ing Ser­vice (MACS) out­pa­tient ser­vice at the Roy­al Ade­laide Hos­pi­tal (RAH).

Oth­er mem­bers of the research team include:

• Dr Jem­ma Ander­son — Clin­i­cal Lead of the SATCCN, 
• Dr Bet­ty-Jean Dee-Price – Researcher and ses­sion­al lec­tur­er – Flinders University 
• Dr Janet Kel­ly — Research Lead: Improv­ing Health Jour­neys & Course Coor­di­na­tor – Uni­ver­si­ty of Adelaide.

The research team is being sup­port­ed by The CEIH team mem­bers who will con­duct inter­views for the project. 

The inter­views will be used by the inves­ti­ga­tors to gen­er­ate health jour­ney maps and case stud­ies to pro­vide an infor­ma­tive nar­ra­tive of the expe­ri­ence and per­cep­tions of transition. 

Key themes will be drawn from the data to high­light effec­tive ele­ments, chal­lenges, bar­ri­ers and gaps for young peo­ple and their advo­cates in tran­si­tion. This project will sup­port and inform oth­er projects being led by the SATC­CN, includ­ing the devel­op­ment of a Statewide Ado­les­cent Tran­si­tion Frame­work, to improve the qual­i­ty and deliv­ery of care to young people.