Abstract
Our pediatric Gender Clinic is receiving a growing number of referrals, yet continues to operate with limited resources. To try to address this issue, a new clinical pathway was developed in 2017, which included an inter-professional assessment clinic run by nurses and social workers as the entry point for new referrals (known as ‘intake appointments’). These visits help to identify those youth who require urgent access to care (i.e. for imminent puberty), wayfinding to community supports and providers who can complete GnRH analog and hormone-readiness assessments, and information about potential medical interventions. The goals of this study were to (1) map out current processes, (2) evaluate wait times for patients referred in 2015-2016 (pre-intake) and 2018-2019 (post-intake), and (3) describe referral patterns and outcomes. Patients referred in 2017 were excluded, as this was a transitional year. In 2015-2016, 222 referrals were received, compared to 407 referrals in 2018-2019. Of the post-intake cohort, to date, 202/407 referrals have led to an intake appointment, of which 45 were via telehealth (a service not previously offered to families). Average wait time to physician visit was 171 days (range 10-1271; IQR 69-208) for patients in the pre-intake cohort, while the average wait time to intake appointment was 200 days (range 9-569, IQR 114-242) in the post-intake cohort. Wait time to physician visits cannot be assessed yet, due to the number of pending referrals. Fifty-four referrals were cancelled in the pre-intake, and 73 in the post-intake cohort. In both groups, the primary reason for cancellation was redirection by our team to other services (32% in both groups), and the second most common reason was cancellation by the family/no show to appointment (26% and 22% in the pre- and post-intake cohorts, respectively). Staffing resources and number of clinics per week have changed over the years, limiting our ability to attribute changes directly to the new clinical pathway. Moreover, most hormone-readiness assessments are completed by community providers. Therefore, wait times to physician visits partly reflect difficulty in accessing these community resources. However, using our new model of care, we have engaged with hundreds of patients and families within a similar time frame to the 2015-2016 cohort, despite an almost doubling of the number of referrals received by our clinic. Although these initial visits do not allow for initiation of medical therapy, they are a means to support patients and families through their gender journey. Moreover, the intake appointments have promoted inter-professional collaborative care, which is particularly beneficial in the face of limited resources. Thus, we believe this new model of care has led to improved quality of care for patients accessing our Gender Clinic.
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