QI Fundamentals is a semi-annual training series, consisting of seven, hour-long webinars over several months, which provides new care centers, or new staff at established care centers, an introduction to quality improvement methods, ImproveCareNow operations and interventions, and an opportunity to begin the community building that is a hallmark of how we work together. Each new series culminates with attendance at the next ImproveCareNow Community Conference. 

ImproveCareNow Learning Labs are small groups of care centers with key characteristics in common or who are working on similar issues. Our Learning Lab structure enables centers to work more closely together to catalyze improvement and to maintain personal connections as the Network grows.  With the Pathway to Mastery initiative, Learning Labs are assigned to a designated pathway (Foundations, Achieving Remission, Achieving Sustained Remission) to drive improvement with a similar area of interest. Aims for each Learning Lab are listed below. 

Foundations

Fundamentals - Focus on becoming an active participant in ImproveCareNow, achieving site activation in less than 90 days (with Institutional Review Board reliance, and participation and data use agreement executed) and successfully enrolling 75 percent of IBD population into registry

Reinforcing Foundations - Register more than 75% of IBD population in less than 9 months of site activation

Achieving Remission

Population Management - Increase the percentage of centers reliably implementing established population management process

Multidisciplinary Pre-Visit Planning - Increase the percentage of centers reliably implementing an established pre-visit planning process

Achieving Sustained Remission

Adherence - By addressing barriers, participating centers will optimize therapy and treatment adherence to increase the percentage of IBD patients in sustained clinical remission

Clinical Standardization / Personalized Care - Participating centers will develop and standardize care pathways to increase the percentage of IBD patients in sustained clinical remission

These groups meet monthly via webinar to share ideas and experiences, collaborate around new topics to support their Pathway, and work through any barriers they face. They also meet in person at ImproveCareNow Community Conferences. Each lab is co-led by a diverse team that include community clinicians, improvement coordinators, patients and parents, and a Quality Improvement Coach (QIC) who provides support, feedback, and new QI tools and helps nurture peer mentoring within the group.

Additional Links

• Communities are made up of smaller communities
• Pathway to Mastery

The ImproveCareNow Transition & Transfer workgroups, formed in 2015, aim to apply quality improvement methodology to testing, implementing, and spreading innovations related to the transition and transfer of care processes.  The work groups aim to develop a structure and plan for identifying, testing, and measuring the impact of tools and strategies related to improving transition to adulthood and transfer to adult care within the Network.  The work groups will continue to work toward standardizing transfer content as well as collaborating with others on useful educational information and practical tools for a successful transition process.

Transition Projects

• Developing a survey for transition barriers

More Info

• Implementing Transition & Transfer of Care Systems in Pediatric IBD

Transfer Projects

• Doc4me App
• Develop a template to compile a patient’s medical history & handoff

Completed Transfer Projects

• Transfer Toolkit
  • Download the Transfer Toolkit
  • Learn more about Patient Clinician Collaboration in Development of an IBD Transfer Toolkit in Pediatrics.  

Contact us for more information about the Transition & Transfer Workgroups. 

The Autoimmune Liver disease Network for Kids

A-LiNK's overall goal is to improve the care and health of children and adolescents with autoimmune hepatitis (AIH), autoimmune sclerosing cholangitis (overlap syndrome), and primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC). As participating centers work toward achieving this goal, they organize their work around a number of specific aims and activities related to improving care processes and outcomes. Pediatric autoimmune liver disease (AILD) is a collective term for a spectrum of liver-based diseases including AIH, autoimmune sclerosing cholangitis (overlap syndrome), and PSC. Importantly, a complex but well-established relationship between AILD and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) exists where concurrent disease is frequently established. 

ImproveCareNow (ICN) is a Learning Health Network of more than 100 pediatric inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) care centers in the US and internationally, that are working together to improve the health, care and cost of children and adolescents with IBD through improvement science, research and innovation.  These centers, which include 40 of the top 50 pediatric GI programs and all 10 of the Honor Roll children’s hospitals in the US, have 950 pediatric gastroenterologists and 30,000 pediatric IBD patients. Notably, it is estimated that approximately 20% to 30% of individuals with IBD will have persistent liver enzyme elevation, suggesting potential hepatobiliary co-morbidity.

The aim of A-LiNK is to establish a novel collaborative and infrastructure partnership with ICN that will enable improved peer-to-peer collaboration across sub-specialties; designing and implementing a pediatric AILD-specific trailblazing community that eliminates boundaries between clinical care, research, and improvement, and engages multi-center participants as part of one system. We expect that this effort will simultaneously improve care, spawn innovation, and accelerate research in the field of pediatric AILD, all while expanding the existing, established footprint that is the ICN Network.

A-LiNK Connections: Parent Community

As parents and guardians of children with AILD, the A-LiNK Connections Parent Community is committed to enhancing the quality of life for the young people and their families who live with AILD. In partnership with ImproveCareNow (a Learning Network focused on improving the lives of kids with IBD) and other pediatric liver care center teams, the A-LiNK Connections Parent Community empowers patients with AILD and their families to thrive in their lives by improving the quality and outcomes of their care.

You can make a difference! If you would like to be part of the A-LiNK Connections Parent Community as a patient or parent: please fill out this sign-up form.

For more information about being a Parent Leader for this community, please visit this page and discuss with your care center.