ImproveCareNow

Here are some of the experiences shared by doctors participating in a recent Improve Care Now learning session:

In addition to seeing patients, I do research. And when you do research, there's this period of time where you're translating what you're learning into patient care. What interested me in joining Improve Care Now was the opportunity to do something that has a rapid impact on patient outcomes. In just a short time, we've seen our outcomes change, we've seen a higher percentage of our patients in remission, and I think that's real. For me it's very powerful to be able to go into the tools and say, these are the patients in our center who aren't doing well right now, it's not time for their visit yet, but I can still pull them up and look through it, and decide if maybe there's other things that could be done. And that can happen in real time rather than waiting until they come to see me again. And while I'm fully supportive of research, and I think that that's a real key to advancing care for these people, I don't see these as mutually exclusive things. Because when we get that exciting new drug, or that exciting new treatment, you still have to take that and plug it into a real-world scenario, and introduce that care to people, and see how it works in the real world. And I think quality improvement provides us with a way to transition from that research to actually implementing the results of that research.

Wallace Crandall, MD
Nationwide Children’s Hospital, Columbus, OH

My work with Improve Care Now makes clinic visits much more proactive and effective for our families, because I know exactly what needs to be covered. It's interesting; as physicians, we really think that we are doing the very best jobs that we can. We genuinely care about our patients; that's why we do what we do. Still, there may be resistance when someone tries to tell you that you could do things better. However, the reality is that we can always improve. I know that I've been able to incorporate this work in my daily practice by utilizing lessons from the different learning sessions, refining clinic and database forms through feedback from colleagues in the collaborative, and ensuring that we're getting the appropriate data, so that our team can make informed, evidence – driven changes. This absolutely has changed how I practice medicine.

Sandra Kim, MD
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC

Our practice joined the Improve Care Now collaborative only last July, but I'm already noticing a difference. Now we have the tools to change and improve the course of children with inflammatory bowel disease immediately using the resources that we already have. It’s opened our eyes to a better way to provide care. And I've been impressed that my staff has really taken this whole project to heart, and feels strongly about it like I do.

Howard Baron, MD
Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition Associates, Las Vegas, NV

Before joining Improve Care Now, we were already doing everything for our patients; giving them the best of care. But after starting with the collaborative, we have seen there is so much more we can do to keep improving care. That has been very helpful, not just for me as a provider, but also for the patients.

Sabina Ali, MD
Oakland Children's Hospital, Oakland, CA

Participation in Improve Care Now has been really exciting, in that we've already seen changes in our practices that we believe are leading to better care.

Mark Integlia, MD
Barbara Bush Children's Hospital at Maine Medical Center, Portland, ME

When I sit in a room with other people taking care of patients like this, most of us know the same things, and we know the drugs, and everybody in the room has the skills. But what many of us lacked were the tools to really elevate the level of care on a day-to-day basis for every patient. With Improve Care Now, we haven't invented any new drugs; it's just applying and managing what we did already in a far better way. And one of the best things in the collaborative effort is that you get help on every level, and we can apply these skills to everything we do to take care of patients. I think we're much more likely to succeed. Life has gotten better, I think, for the vast majority of patients.

Ian Leibowitz, MD
INOVA Pediatric Gastroenterology, Fairfax, VA

I feel like the infrastructure that we have now with Improve Care Now has given us a tremendous amount of stability in how we are caring for patients.. We're not asking our physicians to change the quality care they are providing. We are trying to provide them with an infrastructure to make it easier to provide that care consistently. The information and feedback we're able to make available to them is just helping them take care of patients that much more effectively and efficiently. With the tools we have developed from the Collaborative, we can identify patients that need extra help or that are in an at-risk situation. We can call them immediately, have them come back for a visit or develop a new plan for them. It is a really exciting new step. We have only been doing this for about two years, and when we go back through the list of everything that we've accomplished, it’s amazing. We are able to get patients feeling well, and having improvement in their activity and their quality of life in a much shorter time.

Melissa Metheney, CRC
Nationwide Children's Hospital, Columbus, OH

Being part of Improve Care Now has been awesome; it's made an enormous difference. I see that within my own practice. And the beauty of this collaborative effort is that you don't have to create everything on your own. You find that other people have had some really good ideas that you can apply to your own patients, and that other teams can benefit from our experiences too.

John Grunow, MD
University of Oklahoma, Oklahoma City, OK

When physicians and their care teams start working with the Improve Care Now collaborative, they really aren’t sure if they can accomplish the bold goals that the collaborative has set out. As they work at to make changes, they come to realize that they can actually do much more than they thought they could. The collaborative builds on clinicians' motivation to provide the best care they can. The teams that are part of the collaborative are creating a new system of care delivery that will allow GI practices to detect problems when they're having them, and fix them in real time. We are just beginning to unleash all the knowledge that can come out of our collaboration. Patients and their families will be able to count on receiving the most reliable, evidence-based care that is available today and that new discoveries will rapidly be translated into care as soon as they emerge.

Peter Margolis, MD
Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, OH

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