Improve Care Now (formerly known as the PIBDNet Trailblazer Improvement Collaborative) is a program initiated by the University of Vermont and the Center for Health Care Quality at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center and launched in January, 2007.  Since then, additional hospitals and practices have joined the program and are demonstrating substantial improvements in the care of pediatric IBD and an increase in the percentage of Crohn's Disease and ulcerative colitis patients in remission from active disease.

The primary goals of Improve Care Now for doctors and other care providers are to enable you to:

• Provide the best care possible for patients with these conditions
• Get more of your patients in remission, reduce their symptoms and improve their nutrition and growth
• Determine if there are gaps between the Improve Care Now Model IBD Care and the care that your patients are receiving, and to help you to close those gaps

Quality Improvement With Measurable Results

The Improve Care Now program provides Quality Improvement (QI) techniques and tools that enable participating care providers to achieve the Model IBD Care practices.  Quality Improvement offers physicians the best opportunity to improve health care now.

In addition to meeting the rigorous standards of the American Board of Pediatric (ABP) for Maintenance of Certification, Improve Care Now is one of just four national pediatric improvement initiatives chosen for recommendation by the Improve First campaign of the Alliance for Pediatric Quality, a partnership of the ABP, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the National Association of Children’s Hospitals and Related Institutions, and the Child Health Corporation of America.

Improve Care Now includes:

• A robust framework and organization for effective collaboration among participating doctors
• Participation in development and implementation of the Improve Care Now Model IBD Care Guideline for Consistent Reliable Care
• Tools and strategies for measuring and reporting the performance at each care site and at all sites
• Tools and strategies for identifying gaps between the recommended care and the care actually provided
• Recommendations and assistance to implement quality improvement methods to close the gaps

Benefits for You

Participation in Improve Care Now provides many benefits for care providers and institutions:

• Knowledge that your patients are getting recommended care.
• The ability to evaluate your entire patient population to see how they are doing as a group, and how this compares with patients at other care sites.
• The ability to identify individual patients who need particular attention, allowing you to proactively reach out to them and provide them with the care they need.

To schedule a call with us to learn more about the collaborative, click the Get Started button below.  Or select an additional article from the Learn section of the menu to your left, above to learn more.