It’s been nearly a decade since the first time I spoke as a patient advocate within ImproveCareNow. Joining ICN’s Patient Advisory Council (PAC) has given me a platform to share my story and vision for the future of IBD care. I have had the privilege of being in the PAC for over five years, serving as a PAC Co-Chair, and in my current role representing patients on ICN’s Board of Directors. This entire time, my patient advocacy has been for a medical audience, whether that be members of our ICN community or other learning health networks.

Recently, I had the opportunity to extend my patient advocacy to the policy world in hopes of making an even greater impact.

The moral of the story in episode 35 of imPACt is: don't do what Becky did. 

“If you just sit and give folks a list of facts, they can debate those facts or try to refute them. They can't debate your story. Because it's your story." - Chris Keck on the imPACt Podcast 

Join Vanessa, Becky and Fionna for their conversation with Chris Keck from ImproveCareNow. We discuss storytelling - particularly personal narratives - and why stories matter.

Lifestyle and IBD is a new web-based toolkit that the Patient Advisory Council (PAC) began working on in early 2020. As COVID-19 impacted the lives of many across the country and the world, discussions about how IBD impacts how patients live became especially important to members of the PAC and the greater IBD community. Seeing a need, we decided to co-produce a resource - for patients, by patients - that could help others by sharing direct patient experiences, patient-developed information, resource links, and professional information and insights.

One of the opportunities that active PAC members have is to work on the creation of PAC toolkits. These resources cover many different topics related to life with IBD, but they all share one important thing in common - they are for patients, by patients. 

Would you rather be unable to use school bathrooms or have to have bi-weekly colonoscopies?

We (Becky & Shira) are going to be answering some "Would you Rather" questions and telling spooky stories from Halloweens past, where we have had some close calls and moments that can only be considered entertaining in hindsight. 

Did you miss us? We briefly interrupted our regular, every-other-Friday podcast release schedule. It was for a really good cause though - we released a special episode of imPACt to celebrate World IBD Day (May 19) and talk about the importance of Advocacy! Now we're back and hope you'll join us today for our chat about IBD & Identity.

Hey, it’s Robbie! I’m a member of the Patient Advisory Council (PAC) and your host for Episode 1 of the imPACt podcast today. The PAC and I are beyond excited to share our first full episode of the imPACt podcast with you! Sharing the perspectives of patients and caregivers is our goal, and imPACt truly brings a new, modern twist on allowing others to listen to perspectives of those within the ICN community.

Here #InTheLOOP we have been honored to share hundreds of stories from people across our community. We believe strongly in the power of #TalkingAboutIBD and of stories to highlight the real voices, experiences, joys, frustrations, triumphs and struggles of patients who live with IBD every single day. Today, we are very excited to be able to share a whole new way for you to engage with the patient voice - to really hear their stories - by tuning into a brand new podcast by the Patient Advisory Council (PAC) called imPACt! In this podcast PAC members will be talking openly about IBD with a goal of raising awareness and inclusivity, and connecting with listeners, each other and podcast guests.