Postdoctoral Fellow National Clinician Scholars Program at UCLA Los Angeles, California, United States
Background: Ensuring a successful healthcare transition (HCT) from pediatric to adult care is important for adolescents with asthma, who are vulnerable to fragmented care and poor health outcomes during the transition period. Nevertheless, youth with this condition often experience inadequate transition preparation. Electronic health record (EHR) and portal-based technologies demonstrate promise for widespread implementation of screening and interventions related to the HCT. However, the use of the EHR to assess transition readiness has not been systematically studied in this population. Objective: 1. To evaluate rates of transition readiness assessment among adolescents with asthma. 2. To determine patient characteristics associated with increased screening and transition readiness in this population. Design/Methods: We are in the process of analyzing electronic medical records of all patients between the ages of 14-17 with a diagnosis of asthma who were seen for a well visit at one of seven Internal Medicine-Pediatrics clinics in our health system between 2019-2023. We started with records from 2019, when a quality improvement initiative to incorporate the Transition Readiness Assessment Questionnaire (TRAQ) into adolescent well visits commenced. This validated tool was included in physician note templates and sent to 14 to 17-year-old patients via the patient portal prior to their visits. Descriptive statistics will assess TRAQ completion rates, as well as TRAQ total and individual sub-scores. Bivariate analyses will measure associations between these outcomes and patient sociodemographics, clinical characteristics, and portal use behaviors. Multivariate regression analyses will be used to examine predictors of TRAQ completion and TRAQ scores, including age, sex, social vulnerability index, and the number of hierarchical condition category (HCC) diagnoses (used as a proxy for medical complexity). This study has been approved by the IRB. The data have been extracted from the EHR, and statistical analysis is in progress. All analyses will be completed in the next 1-2 months.
