• Philip Moons, Ewa-Lena Bratt, Julie De Backer, Eva Goossens, Tim Hornung, Oktay Tutarel, Liesl Zühlke, John Jairo Araujo, Edward Callus, Harald Gabriel, Nauman Shahid, Karen Sliwa, Amy Verstappen, Hsiao-Ling Yang, and Corina Thomet.
• KU Leuven Department of Public Health and Primary Care, KU Leuven, Kapucijnenvoer 35, Box 7001, B-3000 Leuven, Belgium.
• Eur. Heart J. 2021 Nov 1; 42 (41): 4213-4223.

AbstractThe vast majority of children with congenital heart disease (CHD) in high-income countries survive into adulthood. Further, paediatric cardiac services have expanded in middle-income countries. Both evolutions have resulted in an increasing number of CHD survivors. Expert care across the life span is necessitated. In adolescence, patients transition from being a dependent child to an independent adult. They are also advised to transfer from paediatrics to adult care. There is no universal consensus regarding how transitional care should be provided and how the transfer should be organized. This is even more challenging in countries with low resources. This consensus document describes issues and practices of transition and transfer of adolescents with CHD, accounting for different possibilities in high-, middle-, and low-income countries. Transitional care ought to be provided to all adolescents with CHD, taking into consideration the available resources. When reaching adulthood, patients ought to be transferred to adult care facilities/providers capable of managing their needs, and systems have to be in place to make sure that continuity of high-quality care is ensured after leaving paediatric cardiology.© The Author(s) 2021. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the European Society of Cardiology.

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