News

To determine the potential effectiveness of programs such as ImproveCareNow, it's important to understand how care is provided in the absense of such programs. The study found that there are significant variations in care, and that gaps exist between recommended and actual care.  An abstract of the study is provided below, followed by a link to the full article on the Journal of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition web site.

ImproveCareNow 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.

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:

ImproveCareNow is a quality improvement project that focuses on measuring and improving the care we provide for our patients with IBD.  Since we joined ImproveCareNow in October 2007, we have enrolled 184 patients at UNC and have recorded over 400 visits to our clinic.  These patients, including your child, are included in an online database which stores information on more than 2000 pediatric IBD patients around the country.  At each visit, we record the patient’s height, weight, medication use, and related lab values to be stored in the database.  We also take note of nutritional status, disease status, and growth. 

The Mayo Clinic in Rochester MN—ranked No. 1 in Digestive Disorders in the U.S. News & World Report Best Hospitals rankings—has joined the ImproveCareNow alliance of health care facilities dedicated to helping children and adolescents with ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s Disease. For more information about the Mayo Clinic, visit the Mayo Clinic website. 

According to a recently released report by the US News & World Report1, ImproveCareNow centers are among the best children’s hospitals, ranked at the top of the Honor Roll and in Gastroenterology specialty. Rankings are based on a reputational survey sent to pediatric specialists and a data survey that is sent to a handpicked set of hospitals.

Watch ImproveCareNow physician Dr. Chris Forrest present via web/NIH VideoCast for the Conference on Methodological Challenges in Comparative Effectiveness Research, December 2-3, 2010. Please find below the details for accessing the video.

The ImproveCareNow Collaborative is a program in which pediatric gastroenterologists at 16 practice sites in the US are working together to develop, test and implement quality improvement tools to improve the care and health of over 2,000 children and adolescents with Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. Since early 2008 the proportion of our Crohn’s disease patients who are in remission has progressively increased from 49% to 64%, and the remission rate of our ulcerative colitis patients is increasing as well. 

AWARD: $10,000 USD  |  DEADLINE: 6/18/11 | SOURCE: InnoCentive  | CHALLENGE ID: 9932749 

Challenge Overview

The Collaborative Chronic Care Network (C3N) is looking for approaches to using games and/or game dynamics applications to inspire adolescents with inflammatory bowel disease (both Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis) and other chronic illnesses to create and maintain their own health. 

ImproveCareNow is pleased to announce that two additional hospitals will be joining the ImproveCareNow Collaborative Network, including the first site from outside the US Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children in London, England, with Physician Leader Mamoun Elawad, will be joining the Collaborative.

• Dr. Elawad will be attending the Learning Session in Chicago this weekend with two other members of the GOSH core QI team, Nikki Acton and Sibongile Chadokufa.