Redesigning Care of Hospitalized Young Adults With Chronic Childhood-Onset Disease

Background Young adults with chronic childhood-onset disease (CCOD) are routinely admitted to internal medicine hospitalist services, yet most lack transition preparation to adult care. Providers and patients feel the strain of admissions to adult services in part due to their medical and social complexity. Methods We performed a descriptive study of a care redesign project for young adults with CCOD hospitalized at a large, tertiary care academic hospital. We describe the process of implementation of the Med-Peds (MP) service line and characterize patients cared for by the service. We measured and analyzed patient demographics, process implementation, healthcare screening, and healthcare utilization data. Results During the 16 months of the study period, 254 patients were cared for by the MP service line, accounting for 385 hospitalizations. The most common CCODs were sickle cell disease (22.4%) and type 1 diabetes (14.6%). The majority (76%) of patients completed transition readiness assessment, and 38.6% completed social determinant of health (SDH) screening during their admission. Patients had high prevalence of SDH with 66.7% having an unmet social need. The average length of stay was 6.6 days and the average 30-day readmission rate was 20.0%. Conclusions There is opportunity to redesign the inpatient care of young adult patients with CCOD. The MP service line is a care model that can be integrated into existing hospital medicine teams with MP physicians. Hospitals should consider redesigning care for young adults with CCOD to meet the transitional and social needs unique to this patient population.