Diabetes Transitional Care Program
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Diabetes is a lifelong condition that requires lifelong care. But transitioning to adult care can come with challenges, like understanding how to manage your blood sugar when you’re sick and how to ensure you stay safe once you’re old enough to drive.
Through the UVA Health Children's Diabetes Transitional Care Program, we help children with diabetes adjust to living with the condition as adults.
Preparing Pediatric Diabetes Patients for Adult Care
As children, patients with diabetes have regular visits with their endocrinologist and other care team members. But once they’re adults, they’re responsible for making their own appointments and voicing their own concerns, questions, and needs. They also have fewer visits with their care team — typically just one or two a year.
Through our Diabetes Transitional Care Program, we empower children — beginning around age 10 — to start learning how to manage their condition and ensure they’re getting the support they need on their own.
Becoming an Adult
Starting at 18, children have to learn to manage their health. This can be challenging, for them and for the adults who care about them. Our transitional care programs help to create confidence and provide assistance.
What You'll Learn to Manage
Manage illness
People with diabetes get sick just like everyone else. Once your child is an adult, they’ll need to know how to manage their diabetes when they feel ill, and how to prepare for illness in advance. For example, we teach children to make sure they always have insulin, other diabetes medicines, and easy-to-make foods on hand and available in case of illness.
We also explain how to supplement meals with carbohydrates like unsweetened applesauce if they feel too sick to eat. In addition, we teach pediatric patients how illness can affect blood sugar levels and give them other tips to follow if they do get sick.
Manage Medical Alert Methods
We can help you manage your medical data on your smartphone, so that it's readily available in case of an emergency. We'll also help you ensure you're getting alerts about health concerns and managing your health data.
Drive Safely With Diabetes
Before driving with diabetes, it’s important to prepare. That means checking with your state Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) office to learn about laws and policies that apply to people with diabetes. It also means monitoring your blood sugar level and changes more closely.
- Keep extra diabetes supplies in the car.
- Pull over to check your blood glucose level if you begin feeling low while driving.
- Store fast-acting carbohydrate sources, like juice boxes or glucose tablets, in the car.
- Wear your med ID while driving, or keep a medical alert card in your wallet.
Ensure You’re Eating a Nutritious Diet
Fueling your body is an important component of diabetes management. But it can be harder as teenagers become responsible for more of their own meals.
Our registered dietitians work with pediatric patients on what kinds of groceries to buy and how to make food that meets their nutritional needs. Even while away at college.
Establish Care With an Adult Provider
Even in children as young as 10, it’s critical to begin talking about the transition to an adult provider for diabetes care. The transition period is often challenging, which is why implementing a strong, practical transition plan early — that includes ongoing conversations and anticipates upcoming changes — can help.
We cover the following topics when creating a care transition plan with families:
- Finances
- Identification of an adult care provider (ideally with the two providers communicating)
- Insurance
- Obtainment of supplies
- Psychosocial issues
We help patients and their families create an achievable transition plan that includes resources for unanticipated issues and challenges.
Nationally Ranked Endocrinology Care
Our pediatric diabetes & endocrinology care has been ranked by U.S. News & World Report as among the best in the nation. We provide expert care for children with hormone and growth conditions, including diabetes, growth, puberty, adrenal, thyroid, and pituitary disorders as well as calcium, phosphorous, and bone conditions. Our compassionate care is tailored to each child.