This Is Me!

A Transition Tool for Bridging the Gap

Across Care Settings

Working collaboratively across

North America, to address the
physical health of children and
adolescents with autism.

Kristin Sohl, MD, Micah Mazurek, PhD, Nancy Cheak-Zamora, PhD

Alicia Curran, BS, Shawna Mabe, RN, Krista Hughes RN
University of Missouri-Columbia

Background

Aims

Children and youth with special health care needs (CYSHCN) experience fractionated
care as care coordination services are unfunded in most health care settings. Lack of
coordination leads to increased:
Caregiver burden and stress
Emergency department visits
Inefficiency for providers/educators

Costs to family and systems of care

Unmet needs for CYSHCN

Facilitate collaboration, knowledge sharing, and consensus among a group of

key stakeholders in the tool development process
Design a dynamic and interactive tool to communicate educational, health,
behavioral and personal information about CYSHCN

Purpose

Value

To create a Tool that bridges care across

settings
Developed for all times of transition
Dynamic easily updated
Utilized across multiple care settings

CYSHCN utilize health and

community services at a higher rate
than children without special health
care needs. This utilization occurs
across settings and throughout
lifespan transitions.

Tool Development

This often requires families to

coordinate care for their children.
Multiple relays of information can
be burdensome to families and
inefficient for providers.

Parents, teachers, primary care providers

and specialists established the need for a
transition tool, identified essential content
and format, and established plans for
testing and dissemination.

Family willingness to share

This Is Me by Recipient Type

Parent Feedback on Use of

"This is Me" tool

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

100
88

75

75
Percent

80

Percent

100

60

75

75

50

40
25

20

25

The results of this project reveal

that the use of a succinct, dynamic
transition tool may be helpful in
fostering coordination and care
across settings.

Highly effective

Easy to navigate and fill out

Will use again for transition

period

Thank you!
To the faculty and staff who helped with this project. And to the families who
helped us learn and whose dedication will help families in the future.

Collaborating with the ATN

To obtain access to the ATN Custom Forms or for information on collaborative
research activities, please go to: www.asatn.org

Acknowledgements
This Network activity was supported by Autism Speaks and cooperative agreement UA3 MC11054 through the U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services, Health Resources and Services Administration, Maternal and Child Health
Research Program to the Massachusetts General Hospital. This work was conducted through the Autism Speaks
Autism Treatment Network.