Improve Care Now makes its abstracts available on its website. These abstracts, authored by a collaboration of researchers, physicians, and quality improvement experts dedicated to helping children and adolescents with ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease, have been presented at national scientific meetings such as the 2009 NASPGHAN Annual Meeting and Advances in Inflammatory Bowel Diseases Conference, among others.

Together, these abstracts demonstrate how the Improve Care Now collaborative works, how the care of children with Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis has improved, and the evidence that, as a result, more children with Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis are feeling well instead of being sick.

Read the abstracts in the About Us section of our website: Improve Care Now Abstracts

The Children's Hospital in Denver, Colorado, which made Honor Roll as one of the nation’s ten best pediatric hospitals in the U.S. News & World Report’s 2009 edition of America’s Best Children’s Hospitals, joins Improve Care Now. By joining Improve Care Now, The Children's Hospital participates in the nationwide collaboration of medical care facilities dedicated to helping children and adolescents with ulcerative colitis and Crohn's Disease get better.

This past Friday, doctors, nurses, parents and policy makers met to release the much anticipated results of a study by ImproveCareNow, the collaborative that is helping kids with Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis get better now. Writing about the event, Thomas McCormally, senior director of Public Relations at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, says:

In the new short film created by Jesse Dylan, care providers participating in ImproveCareNow talk about how the program's collaborative approach and new tools are helping them to improve dramatically the health of children with Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. Watch the short film >

Improve Care Now is inviting all interested parties to join experts from Improve Care Now, acclaimed filmmaker Jesse Dylan, and senior federal officials for a brief presentation and reception.  The event will be held in Washington, DC on November 13, 2009.  In addition to premiering a new short film about the work of ImproveCareNow created by Jesse Dylan, experts will offer a brief presentation of the exciting results achieved by the program to date and federal officials will discuss the impact of the program in current climate of health care reform.

Doctors from Improve Care Now participated in a study regarding variations in the treatment of children and teens with Crohn's Disease in 48 hospitals across the United States.  The results of the study have recently been published in the Journal of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition.

Fostering innovation to speed the improvement of health care is the goal of an $8.3 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to researchers at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center.

The following presentation was given by Dr. Richard Colletti at Digestive Diseases Week (May 30 - June 4, Chicago, IL), the world's largest gathering of physicians and researchers (over 15,000) in the fields of gastroenterology, hepatology, endoscopy, and gastrointestinal surgery.

The American Board of Pediatrics remains a strong supporter of Improve Care Now.  Recently, James Stockman, President and CEO of the ABP, wrote a letter to a participating hospital commending them on their participation in the program and discussing why he believes that this work is so critical.

Dear IBD Parents and Patients,

At the North Carolina Children’s Hospital, we are committed to providing the best possible care to all of our patients.   To accomplish this mission, our Pediatric Inflammatory Bowel Diseases (IBD) center has been participating in a Pediatric IBD Quality Improvement Collaborative for the past two years.   This Collaborative, which has been renamed ImproveCareNow, is comprised of 16 hospitals nationwide.  Participating IBD centers work to improve their IBD patients’ treatment and health.  Your child is currently enrolled in this research program, so we would like to update you and your child on our progress to date. 

Dear Patients and Families:

We at North Carolina Children’s Hospital are committed to providing the best possible care to all of our patients. In trying to accomplish this mission, the Pediatric Inflammatory Bowel Diseases (IBD) Center has been participating in a pediatric IBD quality improvement collaborative for the past two years.   This collaborative, which has been renamed ImproveCareNow, is comprised of 16 hospitals around the country.  Participating hospitals pay special attention to their IBD patients’ treatment and condition.  We are sending this letter to all of our IBD patients and their parents who are not yet enrolled in ImproveCareNow to provide you with information on this research project.