On Thursday, April 24, 2025 ImproveCareNow is hosting our Spring Live Online Community Conference (LOCC). Sessions will run from 10:30 AM ET (9:30 AM CT, 8:30 AM MT, 7:30 AM PT) to 5:30 PM ET. Everyone is welcome and encouraged to join us for this interactive, online event and we are proud to be able to offer FREE registration for all patients and parents/caregivers. 

ImproveCareNow (ICN) has had enormous success since it began 18 years ago, increasing remission rates for thousands of young people with IBD, transforming how pediatric IBD care is 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 calendar year 2024 Annual Update, which includes highlights and achievements from 2024 and plans for our continued work to improve health, care, and costs for young people with IBD in 2025 and beyond.

ImproveCareNow (ICN) has had enormous success since it began 17 years ago, increasing remission rates for thousands of young people with IBD, transforming how pediatric IBD care is 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 2023 Annual Update, which includes highlights and achievements from 2023 and plans for our continued work to improve health, care, and costs for young people with IBD in 2024 and beyond.

ImproveCareNow (ICN) has had enormous success since it began 16 years ago, including increasing remission rates for thousands of young people with IBD, transforming how pediatric IBD care is  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 2022 and plans for our continued work to improve health, care, and costs for young people with IBD in 2023 and beyond.

We've been getting to know ICN staff members through our imPACt ImproveCareNow network series (last time we talked with Chris Keck about why storytelling matters). In this episode, join Caitlyn, Vanessa and Fionna for a chat with Sydney Bogardus who supported the PAC and the PFAC (Patient/Family Advisory Council) for several years before taking on another role in ICN.

ImproveCareNow has had enormous success since it began 15 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 2021 and plans for our continued work to improve health, care, and costs for young people with IBD in 2022 and beyond.

In December 2021, our team's ICN Coordinator/Data Analyst - Ashley Kiel - shared her experience as an essential, but non-clinical team member involved in the challenge we undertook to educate our local IBD community about the ImproveCareNow CIRCLE and how patient and family engagement can positively impact overall care and treatment of IBD. Now, I'd like to add my perspective, as a pediatric GI doc, on why engaging with patients and families is so important, how we have been pursuing engagement efforts over the past year, and what others can steal shamelessly from our experience.

My name is Ashley and I am the ImproveCareNow Coordinator/Data Analyst for the IBD Team at Nationwide Children's Hospital. My team was challenged by the Engagement Trailblazers to educate our patient population about ImproveCareNow's CIRCLE and how patient and family engagement can positively impact overall care and treatment of IBD. 

ImproveCareNow Learning Labs are small groups of care centers with key characteristics in common or who are working on similar issues. This structure enables care centers to work more closely together to catalyze improvement and to maintain personal connections as our Network grows. Engagement Trailblazers is a Learning Lab focused on finding ways to connect with all patients and families across ImproveCareNow and to help them access and utilize the IBD resources we create together.

ImproveCareNow was highlighted in a September 2021 article by Healthcare Innovation called Pulling Together Around the Patient Experience. In the article, author David Raths uses interviews with key network participants to characterize the ways in which patients and clinicians are working together to co-produce care pathways, outcome measures and clinical trials - and the impact these efforts are having.