News

ImproveCareNow has had enormous success since it began 14 years ago, including increasing remission rates for thousands of young people with IBD, transforming how pediatric IBD care is being provided, enlightening and exciting clinicians and other care providers, and engaging patients and parents in a shared purpose and work. We are pleased to share our ImproveCareNow Annual Update, which includes highlights and achievements from 2020 and plans for our continued work to improve health, care, and costs for young people with IBD in 2021 and beyond.

ImproveCareNow Executive Leadership and the Community Conference Planning Team have announced their intention to honor former President and Executive Network Director, Dr. Richard B. Colletti, by naming the Community Conference clinical plenary after him, beginning with the Spring 2021 Live Online Community Conference:   

The Richard B. Colletti Clinical Plenary: Understanding Disparities in Gastrointestinal Disorders: Where They Stem from and Strategies to Overcome Them 

Cincinnati-based digital health company, Hive Networks, announced a multi-year partnership with ImproveCareNow, a collaborative community seeking to improve the health and care of children and youth with Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis – collectively known as Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD).

The Pediatric IBD Foundation, ImproveCareNow, and the Critical Path Institute (C-Path) are proud to announce a collaboration establishing the Children’s Registry for the Advancement of Therapeutics (CREATE™). CREATE™ is a drug-agnostic safety registry designed to support the completion of global post-marketing safety requirements, as well as collect safety information on all therapies used in pediatric IBD patients.

The ImproveCareNow Board of Directors has announced the creation of The Richard B. Colletti Family Fund, which will provide funds to offset the cost of sending patients and parents to ICN Community Conferences. The fund was established in honor of outgoing President and Executive Network Director, Dr. Richard B. Colletti; in recognition of his personal and professional leadership and continuous commitment to children and families living with Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis.

Dr. Richard B. Colletti will officially step down from ImproveCareNow on July 31, 2020.

ImproveCareNow stakeholders, including clinicians, patients, parents and leadership have been working together with small scale to improve the ICN network’s governance of data with goals of ensuring the safety of our community, the progression of research, and the achievement of quality improvement aims. This collaboration launched at the Spring 2019 Community Conference and the first phase is now complete, which culminated in the “Governing the ImproveCareNow Network” report.

We are pleased to announce the ImproveCareNow Data Management Team, with input from the Parent Working Group and Patient Advisory Council, has prepared and released the 2019 ImproveCareNow Annual Data Report. This report aims to present a brief summary of the patient data captured in the ICN Registry - a disease-specific, enhanced health registry that has been built by and for the ICN Network.

Racial inequity is a public health crisis. Every person deserves culturally sensitive and competent health care. ImproveCareNow believes that every patient and caregiver should get what they need when they need it.

We must do better together.

On Wednesday, May 27, 2020 ImproveCareNow announced the decision to transition their in-person Fall Community Conference to a Live Online event. The decision was made jointly by the ImproveCareNow Directors and the Community Conference Planning Team, in consideration of the continued uncertain circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The ImproveCareNow Board of Directors has announced that Kristin M. Howe, DC, MHA has accepted the position of Executive Director of ImproveCareNow. Dr. Howe will begin her new position on June 1, 2020 and will be working closely with ImproveCareNow Co-founder and Executive Network Director, Richard Colletti, MD as he prepares to step down later in July.