ImproveCareNow has created a collaborative community where clinicians, researchers, patients and parents are empowered to learn and continuously improve to bring about more reliable, proactive IBD care for healthier children and youth.
Our purpose is to transform the health, care and costs for all children and adolescents with Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis (Inflammatory Bowel Disease or IBD) by building a sustainable collaborative chronic care network. We are enabling patients, families, clinicians and researchers to work together in a learning health care system to accelerate innovation, discovery and the application of new knowledge.
ImproveCareNow has raised the bar for the standard of care in pediatric IBD.
Since ImproveCareNow began in 2007, we have increased the number of kids in remission with Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis in our Network. To do this, participating centers collect standardized data during all clinic visits, monitor individual and overall performance, compare outcomes, and share the best evidence and tools for helping patients with IBD get better faster, and stay well longer.
By employing an “all teach, all learn” collaborative approach to medicine, we encourage new ideas and best practices to be identified and introduced into the care delivery process much faster—improving care and outcomes for our patients now.
That means more kids with IBD are feeling well, and enjoying the activities that are important to them.
See who is participating in the ImproveCareNow Network.
Learn how your center can join ImproveCareNow today.
Our Success
ImproveCareNow tracks measures of care for patients with Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis in our network. Our Success is an infographic we use to share some of our measurable results and show you what we have achieved together.
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Our Results
Control charts demonstrate our success over time. Charts like these are one tool ImproveCareNow uses to demonstrate and learn from our work over time, and to innovate and discover new ways to transform care and health for children and youth with IBD. In quality improvement, we investigate the true source of any data shift, and only “shift the centerline” (an indication of a measurable improvement across the entire population represented in the chart) when we are certain that there has been a system-wide improvement in outcomes. Centerlines typically shift after 8 consistent data points above or below the control limit.
Chart Legend
Dash Green: Target
Solid Blue: Centerline
Dash Lines: Upper / Lower Control Limits
Operational Definition - Numerator: Total number of patients with physician global assessment identified as quiescent; Denominator: Total number of patients. Inclusions: Patient had a visit in the last 13 months, Days since diagnosis at most recent visit >= 112 days. Exclusion: PGA from most recent visit is missing or don't know.
Operational Definition - Numerator: Total number of patients with quiescent disease activity and no reported relapse for every visit in the 365 day window ending with the month being reported; Denominator: Total number of patients. Inclusions: Patient had a visit in the last 13 months, Days since diagnosis at most recent visit > 477(112 + 365) days, Patient has been a current patient in the practice for at least 365 days. Exclusions: PGA is missing or don't know for all visits in the last 365 days. Continuous remission status is missing for all visits in the last 365 days.
Operational Definition - Numerator: Total number of patients with physician global assessment identified as quiescent and not taking prednisone. Denominator: Total number of patients. Inclusions: Patient had a visit in the last 13 months, Days since diagnosis at most recent visit >= 112 days. Exclusions: PGA from most recent visit is missing or don't know. Prednisone use from most recent visit is missing.
Please remember to use the following citation if you plan to use the data from these graphs:
ImproveCareNow™. “Purpose & Success.” ImproveCareNow, 2024, www.improvecarenow.org/purpose-success.