ImproveCareNow Patients


Communities take risks together.

I am writing this having just returned from several whirlwind days in Chicago at the first ever ImproveCareNow Community Conference. The ImproveCareNow Network has come together in person twice a year for seven years, but this was the first time this gathering was not called a Learning Session—the traditional Quality Improvement Collaborative term for in-person meetings. We changed the name for several reasons, the most important being that ImproveCareNow is now indeed a community. Here are some reasons why:

 

ImproveCareNow is a community

 

We have each of these things in ImproveCareNow and in future LOOP posts I will share examples of each. But one that I didn’t list,which became very clear to me at the conference, is that the best communities take risks together. I want to share a bit more about that here.

 

One of our conference goals was to brainstorm new interventions—in QI-speak, “changes to test,” - that will help us get even more kids with Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis into remission. Prior to the conference, we developed a new list of key drivers—or focus areas—that we thought were most important to improvement. Now it was time to crowd-source the best ideas for interventions to tackle in each area. This tends to be the most fun part of the process!ImproveCareNow Key Driver Diagram with Primary Drivers and Space for new InterventionsThe ImproveCareNow Network has developed interventions together before. But this time, we wanted to make sure our incredible diversity and stakeholder engagement was really reflected in these new interventions. In the weeks leading up to the conference, each center interviewed patients and parents to get input on challenges and opportunities in each Key Driver area. In doing so, they opened themselves up to a variety of feedback; I know this felt risky to some centers.

 

Pre-work from the Spring 2015 ImproveCareNow Community Conference: Learning from Patients and ParentsBut as a community we took the risk together. Prior to the conference, nearly all of our 254 participants chose the three Key Drivers that most interested them. Once we received their choices, we put together small groups (6-9 people) that were as diverse as possible-blending people from different centers and with most groups including at least one patient, one parent, and others from several clinical roles. Planning this felt risky even as it felt like the right thing to do. Would people want to spend almost two hours of valuable conference time in an informal exercise with people outside of their peer groups? Would lone parents and patient at the tables feel overwhelmed, ignored, or vulnerable? Would conversations stall with the minutes ticking by slowly?

 

It ended up being a risk well worth taking. Between 2:00 pm and 4:30 pm on Saturday the low, quiet, steady buzz of conversation eased all of my concerns about people diving in and learning with those very different from themselves. Many observers noted that as  groups tackled the provided questions, the first thing they did was turn to the parent or patient at the table—deferring to their expertise. When each of the three 40-minute discussion periods ended, we worked harder than expected to get each group to wrap up and move to their next tables. And the notes that were shared—and will guide our work in the months and years ahead—are full of some of the richest, most diverse insights I’ve seen in my quality improvement career.

 

Example of Notes from the Small Group Discussions about ImproveCareNow Key Drivers and InterventionsWe work hard to make sure all participants in this community have the quality improvement structure, skills, and tools to achieve their goals. Even more important is making sure the right centers and people connect so they can do more together than alone. We foster this online on our ICN Exchange knowledge commons, on monthly webinars, and at our Community Conferences. Admittedly, this gets a bit more challenging as we grow and we don’t always get it right. But what these collaboration sessions showed me is that community members desperately want to keep connecting across roles and centers and that they embrace the expertise of everyone at the table. They are building their own momentum and will continue to do so even as we get bigger and push our network infrastructure to keep up. So thank you to the ImproveCareNow community for taking risks together, leaving roles and titles aside, and creating a better today and tomorrow for and with kids with IBD.


This is not goodbye.

Samantha Kennedy - outgoing Patient Advisory Council ("Pack") Co-Chair - is heading off to medical school in the Fall. In an inspirational message to Community Conference attendees - and indeed the whole ImproveCareNow Community - she thanks everyone for working within ImproveCareNow and for believing we can make a difference together. And she reminds us that our work (with patients specifically, and in general) may not be easy or quick or tidy, but 'it is the future, and we need to be the same sort of brave you ask patients to be as we pave that road.'


Sami's words are inspiration on-tap. Enjoy!

 

 

Samantha KennedyThis is not a goodbye.

 

Yes, I will be a student at Cooper Medical School in the fall. Yes, Jennie and I are transitioning the Patient Advisory Council into the hands of wiser, brighter, and as it so happens, younger colleagues. Yet, this is not a goodbye. I have little doubt you will agree: once you are a part of ImproveCareNow, you are always part of ImproveCareNow. As I enter medical school, I question how I can best serve as both a patient advocate and a medical student. I know only this for certain: I cannot imagine practicing in a system without ImproveCareNow and similar networks I hope will be just as successful for other conditions. We are not only creating health for kids with inflammatory bowel diseases; this is making the whole system healthier.

 

By name, we are a curriculum. We are a learning health network, a network – learning – together. I think it is easy to forget what that means - that we’re all students. If I have been brought up through the education system correctly, as I hope I have as a soon-to-be-graduating senior, being a student is not about getting everything right every time. Students try. Students revise. Students experience. Students have open and engaged minds that recognize success not as a thing but as a method. We are students. We are a learning health network.

 

When I first started co-chairing the PAC, I really strongly believed we needed to build a model framework for the engagement of patients in a learning health network. Jennie and I took the PAC and restructured it into task forces. We are distributing leadership. We are increasing intra-PAC participation. We are concentrating our resources on developing sustainable task forces, on developing leaders. We are increasing our collaboration with your care centers throughout the network, finding ways we can help each other. We are trying to foster and amplify the voices of not only PAC members, but patients throughout the network. We are establishing a project management structure. We are clarifying guidelines for what active membership means. We are piloting a recruitment program. We are PDSA-ing what ideal patient engagement here at Community Conferences should resemble.

 

I do not like how those sentences begin. “We are” as a phrase signifies something that is ongoing, not something that is done. As students, researchers, and leaders, we like progress and conclusions. It can feel to me that some of the work we are engaging in is continuing indefinitely.

 

In our case, however, “we are” is a phrase of success. We are lasting. We are continuing. We are making changes, which lead to other changes, hence prompting more changes.
We are changing the paradigm. In 2013, the Patient Advisory Council was a Facebook group. Today, we are present on multiple network-wide communication platforms and building a presence within care centers. In 2013, we were trying to fit into interventions, to carve out corners and spaces and places we could fit. Today, we are co-creating our own innovations; you are allowing us to co-create yours because you see the value in that. We are challenging the paradigm of how patients and clinicians should interact. In 2013, patients and parents were a minority here. Today, we are here in force. We are fifteen patients. Fifty percent of the PAC is here this weekend. That has never happened before. In 2013, we were acquaintances, colleagues. Today, I call many of you friends and mentors - we talk about mentoring so often here just in the peer-to-peer patient sense, and that is a huge deal, but we are a community of mentors. I don’t know if we recognize that explicitly enough. We are learning in a network, we are learning not only from each other but with each other.

 

Very rarely will our work end with a hard stop, but that would be the wrong measure by which to judge ourselves and our success. A hard stop would only indicate failure, that we have stopped approaching barriers creatively and stopped challenging ourselves, so that we can go no further. To be a learning health network, I believe we are held to the same standards as all ideal students. We try and we do not give up, even when we want to, even when our work feels tedious, even when we feel as if we are is not enough, even when we feel as if we are achieving little. If we measure ourselves by growth and not an endpoint, we see ourselves as a community in a clearer light.

 

We are ImproveCareNow. I am ImproveCareNow, and I am really enthusiastically proud of that. I cannot wait to carry that to Cooper with me and beyond and see where it takes all of us. Thank you for working within ImproveCareNow, and for believing that we make a difference together. Please go home and believe in your own patients and believe they can help you go further. It may not be easy or quick or tidy - like some of us really like - but it is the future, and we need to be the same sort of brave you ask patients to be as we pave that road.

 

If we stop believing patients and families matter in care, our magic as a collaborative will be lost. We celebrate our successes not because failures do not happen, but because when we keep trying and trying and trying, we succeed. It may feel like magic, but it is we are just people – believing –together.


Inspiration on tap - Jennie's Speech

Out of all the talks at the ImproveCareNow Spring 2015 Community Conference none made my heart beat a little faster quite like those delivered by Patient Advisory Council Co-chairs Sami Kennedy and Jennie David. The ability of these two ladies to shine a light directly at the heart and soul of ImproveCareNow is uncanny and uplifting. I challenge anyone reading this, Jennie's speech, to not break into a face-splitting grin (and/or run right out to change the world).

 

For anyone momentarily struggling with the thankless monotony of changing the healthcare system - I would prescribe the following: read a speech at bedtime and resume improving care now in the morning. Repeat as needed for maximum benefit.

 

They're a bit long so I've shared Jennie's speech below and will share Sami's in a separate post. Enjoy!

 

 

 

 

 

Jennie DavidThere is a cold tradition in medicine of an unaccommodating hierarchy, where the doctor is installed as the superior and the patient as the inferior. Under the mechanical demeanor of navigating such medical appointments, the whole thing – being exclusively a patient or a doctor, sick or healthy, needing or giving – seems ridiculous and illogical. Outside the sanitized walls of the hospital, I am a person complete with hopes and fears, and yet inside a hospital room – moreover, on an exam table – I am a specimen of my disease, a list of medications, a compilation of surgical scars. There’s a marked lack of apologies or prerequisites for doctors to perform examinations, ask invading and uncomfortable questions, and inflexibly dictate treatment, the flimsy but bold idea that it was all just ‘good business’ woven throughout it all.

 


I fought against this notion of paternalistic care throughout my pediatric care, routinely clashing with my doctor, the tense encounters punctuated by his passive aggressive sighs and sometimes me crying. I believed in the idea of doctors, patients, and parents working together, but it was much like a wish over birthday candles than anything I knew existed in reality. I kept this starry-eyed but unrealized medical vision in mind, and was consistently underwhelmed and disappointed in medical care that failed to detect my soul within my diseased body as the years swept by.

 


And then I – quite literally – stumbled across ImproveCareNow. Admittedly, I was enchanted with notion of such a collaborative network, but it somehow seemed too saccharine, too futuristic, too implausible. Having been a patient advocate for several years before discovering ICN, I was used to fulfilling the token patient role, saying token patient things, and – ultimately – doing the limited token patient things. But there is nothing token, ordinary, or suffocating about being a patient advocate within this network. This network is filled with sincerity, generosity, creativity, curiosity, and a desperate and passionate drive to improve things right this very moment for children and families living with IBD. The insatiable appetite for research, quality improvement, and innovative collaborations was infectious, and – while I can remember the extensive exhaustion after my first Learning Session – what I remember more is my heart racing with excitement realizing the remarkable gravity the network can have on pediatric IBD.

 


New traditions began to solidify: being asked for my opinion by established researchers and the allowance of a pause to actually absorb and respect my answer, the verbal and instrumental encouragement to actualize projects I’d dreamt of, being on a first name basis with clinicians I was so starry-eyed around that I had to force myself not to ask for autographs on manuscripts, and having an undisputedly important place at the table in the conversation for the evolution of quality, patient-centered, collaborative care. I also have to acknowledge the wealth of community-driven traditions: suitcases packed to the brim with candy, repurposing Taylor Swift’s “We’re Never Ever Getting Back Together” as an ode to my long lost colon, and corralling clinicians to take pictures with Flat Jennie.

 


The words “thank you” will never be enough, and I know that, and wish I could come up with some brilliantly poetic phrase to aptly articulate my profound, profound, profound gratitude. I am thankful for the collective kindness of everyone in this room, the extraordinary opportunities that have been so undeservedly yet continually offered, the patience, humility, and willingness to listen to my ideas and experiences, the faith that has been loaned to allow projects to develop, and the utterly bottomless generosity afforded to me that I have been so unimaginably honored to have received.

 


“Thank you” is not enough, in part because it is not, in and of itself, action. Instead, I will promise this: I promise to embody the spirit of ICN as I move throughout my psychology doctorate training, when I enter the field of pediatric psychology as a professional, and with every human being I encounter, be it in the hospital or on a street corner. I promise to play a role in the cultural revolution that is innovative collaborative care, to be proud and firm in constructing the values-informed medical traditions of tomorrow, and to help set the world on fire with the formidable (onerous) but righteous idea that clinicians, patients, and parents should stand shoulder to shoulder in medical care.

 


I have seen and felt the unparalleled power of this network, I have witnessed how kindness changes the world, I have been so humbled, fortified, and impassioned by sharing the vision of collaborative, personalized, and humanistic medicine with all of you. It is a cultural revolution, it is a new tradition, and it is something I am so very, very, very honored to have been a part of.


The PAC Tweets #ICNCC15s

A record seven gutsy patient advocates in ICN's Patient Advisory Council - PAC, "pack" - attended the Community Conference. We tweeted live at #ICNCC15s all the way through - so please check out our feed!!

The Patient Voice is already strong on Twitter. For a week leading up to the conference, Alex, Bianca, Christian, Isabelle, Jennie, Randa, and I tweeted once a day to provide a glimpse into how IBD factors (or does not factor, in some cases) into our days. We made special reference to the key drivers of remission took center stage at the Community Conference and form the foundation of ImproveCareNow's work:

7 Key Drivers of Remission



Jennie described challenges that impede her access to and communication with her doctor.

Screen Shot 2015-03-26 at 11.30.29 AMRanda described how proactive care allowed her to take better control of her ulcerative colitis.

Screen Shot 2015-03-26 at 11.18.23 AM Alex questioned why it can be so hard to find the right medication - and shared his optimism that more accurate diagnoses and research can change the game!

Screen Shot 2015-03-26 at 11.17.49 AM

Bianca shared how less-than-optimal nutritional intake has impacted her - and made it difficult for her to grow at the same rate as her peers.

Screen Shot 2015-03-26 at 11.27.27 AM Isabelle emphasized the relevance of compassionate care to psychosocial health.

Screen Shot 2015-03-26 at 11.31.39 AMFinally, Christian described how a food journal has improved his ability to self-manage his IBD.

Screen Shot 2015-03-26 at 11.11.38 AMAnd, I shared how my pill case makes it easier for me to stay adherent at college and on-the-go!

Screen Shot 2015-03-26 at 11.34.53 AM We hope you'll join the conversation on Twitter now and in the future!

 


Christian joins the Patient Advisory Council

PAC Member Christian HansenMy name is Christian Hanson and I am a sophomore at Brown University. I was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease at age ten and receive Remicade infusions at Boys Town Medical Center in Omaha, Nebraska. While Crohn’s so often feels like a heavy burden, there have been fleeting moments where my condition feels more like a blessing: Through this disease I have discovered a network of heroes who have overcome the trials of IBD and have been surrounded by a caring and compassionate network that spans the United States. I am joining the Patient Advocacy Council because I believe in their mission to magnify the voices of patients and advocate for those who cannot. I will be helping share, via CIRCLE eNewsletter, updates about the PAC and various projects related to patient engagement active throughout the ImproveCareNow Network. Feel free to contact me at [email protected] if you would like to learn more about the PAC or would like to speak with me regarding my personal experiences.


All the best,
Christian Hanson


What is Smart Patients? And why are we partnering?

Smart Patients logoThe team at Smart Patients has impressed us here at ImproveCareNow. They have proven themselves as experts in creating a culture and a space for generous, information-rich sharing which gives people living with chronic illnesses like Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis (Inflammatory Bowel Disease or IBD) a safe place to learn and share.

There are many social networks and online communities for IBD, but we have chosen to partner with the Smart Patients team because their custom-built, disease-specific forums offer a truly safe, warm and engaging experience for users. Smart Patients also offers conversation tagging, and clearly defined community norms, which means community members are highly likely to find the answers they need and highly unlikely to be trolled. And because the conversations are arranged using tags and completely searchable, you can always find what you’re looking for.

The Smart Patients team and ImproveCareNow have partnered to create an online IBD community that is supportive and also powerful. The Smart Patients IBD community has the power to improve health and health care systems through patient and family peer-to-peer learning.

Join the Smart Patients community for IBD today. Together, we can outsmart IBD!


Breaking a Promise

When Jennie and I applied to represent the Patient Advisory Council for ImproveCareNow as PAC Scholars in 2012, we were asked to each write an essay on our expectations and goals. I read mine over in December before I jumped on a plane to Orlando - more on that later.

I wrote in my essay, way back in 2012, a list of promises I would keep if I could just please go to a Learning Session. Paramount on that list was this: "I will listen more than I will speak." Because that's what patients do, right? I had the distinct feeling that I would be an intruder in a place where patients don't belong - and let me be clear that no one in ImproveCareNow made me feel this way; my stereotyped idea of what it meant to be a patient did.

"I will listen more than I will speak." This was my perception: it was okay for patients to sit at the table. To sit, to listen, but to speak? How could I? I was nineteen. I was a patient. What could I possibly have to share?

There is a time for listening, absolutely. But there is also a time for speaking - for all to speak. I had no concept of that as a young patient. I couldn't imagine myself having any sort of expertise that would help improve the healthcare system, even as I navigated it constantly. I figured I'd be there as an observer, to bring back insights to share with other patients about ImproveCareNow's work to help kids recover from, and more so, avoid flares of their IBD. Observer is the word I would have chosen to describe my responsibilities there.

IMG_2301 PAC Co-Chairs, then PAC Scholars, Jennie David (left) and Sami Kennedy (right) at their first ImproveCareNow Learning Session, October 2012.

Since my first Learning Session in the fall of 2012, I have been to five more. At each of them I have listened with a tape recorder running in my mind every second of every day, but I have also come home with a hoarse voice. Observer? No. I am so much more. No one at the Learning Session is just an observer - whether a long-time veteran or a special guest. Look at the buzz generated on Twitter (while you're at it, check out #icncc15s!) if you don't believe me.

I love to tell the story from my second Learning Session. To give you some context I am still nineteen here, and I've never before presented anything, anywhere, outside of a classroom. I was involved in a Q&A after a presentation I co-led with a physician and psychologist on medication adherence. A psychologist, physician, and patient together giving a presentation - I couldn't have imagined that just six months earlier! A physician in the audience posed a question to me regarding how I felt adherence could be effectively encouraged in patients my age. I gave my best answer, and he responded with his opinion based on his experiences, which happened not to be congruent with mine. We conversed for a few minutes; others chimed in. It was fascinating, thrilling, magical; I don't know if I can point to a better real-life definition of active collaboration.

After the session, this same physician hurried up to me at the podium. "I'm sorry," he said.

Wait, he said what?!

"I'm sorry," he said.

I asked him to clarify, very confused, and he explained that he worried he had made me uncomfortable by challenging my opinion as a patient. In fact, he had done just the opposite. This was my ImproveCareNow "lightbulb" moment.

Screen shot 2013-10-25 at 2.42.09 PM Sami (left) with former PAC Chair Jill (right) and ImproveCareNow project coordinator Molly (center) at the Spring 2013 Learning Session.

I have been asked countless times: how did you become who you are, a young patient leader? How do we get our patients to be like you? I am not sure this is the question we should be asking - because it assumes I am extraordinary. I know I am different; I have done things few other patients my age have - but it is not me that is extraordinary. I have been welcomed into an environment where I am encouraged to not only sit at the table, but also to stand up and address the whole room.

ImproveCareNow is an extraordinary community - a community with an ever-growing number of parents and patients being handed the mic - being asked to do things that were never before possible. This physician hadn't made me uncomfortable, no, not at all - he had made me comfortable. Our conversation erased all doubt from my mind that I was there for show; I was there for the same reason as him.

I wish I could convey to you how incredible that felt - and how sad I feel in retrospect that feeling included, truly included, had to feel incredible because it was so unusual.

I told that very story twice in 2014 to two very amazing audiences - first, to executives from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and, second, to healthcare leaders and learners at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement National Forum - the reason I took that flight to Orlando. I presented the Patient Advisory Council to each and, in each case, asked them to imagine collaborating with patients. I told them about the promise I made before my very first Learning Session, and how I have broken it over and over again.

IHI Conference Dec 9 2014 - Sami presentation photo Sami presenting the PAC at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement National Forum in December 2014.

There is a time for listening, and there is a time for speaking. For all to speak, and all to listen.

I found out in the fall I've been accepted to medical school, and I'm still trying to figure out what it will mean for me to be both a patient advocate and a medical student. But here is what I do know: I can't really imagine myself practicing in a system without ImproveCareNow and networks like it that I hope will be just as successful for other conditions. I want to be a physician who makes my younger self proud. One who doesn't just repair broken things, but creates things that are better. One who is brave enough to say and show that everyone has expertise, taking patient and family engagement to the places ImproveCareNow has, where it can be frightening to go. I see networks following in the footsteps of ImproveCareNow as the foundation of how I hope to practice - and how I have to practice. This is not only creating health for kids with IBD; this is making the whole system healthier.

Of course I am scared as I figure out a new set of expectations - but, this time, I don't expect to be silent.


The future of IBD research is in your hands

ImproveCareNow has partnered with Patient PrioritiesThe goal of medical research is to find answers that will improve the lives of patients. But how can we be sure the answers really matter if we don’t ask patients what they want and need to know?

ImproveCareNow is committed to supporting research that represents patient and family perspectives. As part of our funding from the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute and the US Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, we are working with leading health care researchers from Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Katherine Bevans, PhD and Chris Forrest, MD, PhD (selected publications by Dr. Forrest) to use new ways to engage everyone in the IBD community in setting our direction for learning. They have created a website called Patient Priorities to find out what YOU want and need to know about Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis (IBD). You don’t need any research experience to participate.

You will be asked to recall moments during your/your child’s diagnosis and/or treatment when you wanted more information, or had questions that were not answered. Maybe you had questions when comparing two treatment options, or making the decision to end a particular treatment. Any difficult moment when you needed more clarity and information is important for researchers to know about.

Responses to the 10-minute survey are anonymous and will be grouped with many other responses to develop a list of “Learning Objectives.”  Some Learning Objectives may be answered using existing research. Where there is good research to answer common questions, ImproveCareNow will be making more tools and resources for families available through care centers and in our online communities: Facebook, Twitter, here on LOOP, CIRCLE, the ICN Exchange and Smart Patients. Those Learning Objectives that are unanswered and require more research will be added to the ImproveCareNow research agenda.

We’ve heard from many patients with IBD and their parents. It would be great to hear from many more to be sure the Learning Objectives really represent a wide variety of experiences.

Here’s your survey: http://bit.ly/lrnobjs

This is an important opportunity for us to shape the future of IBD research. We will be sharing our results and what we’ve learned along the way, so you can see how we’re outsmarting IBD together.


Gutsy 3 & 4 Take On The Learning Session!

As this year's PAC Scholars Bianca and I (Isabelle) got to go to the 2014 Fall Learning Session in Chicago. We had such a great time and just wanted to share some of our thoughts about the LS before, during and afterwards!The 2014-15 PAC Scholars Bianca & Isabelle

Before:


Isabelle: Leading up to the Learning session I was so excited! There were so many texts and e-mails and many plans to be made (plane tickets, hotel rooms, and most importantly snack choices). As it got closer I was a little nervous, as I am the only one of the PAC representatives who had never been to a Learning Session before, but mostly I was just so excited to see/meet my fellow PAC leaders and so many others!

Bianca: Before the Learning Session I was super excited to see everyone again and be able to meet my fellow PAC Scholar, Isabelle! Since I had already been to a few Learning Sessions, I knew what to expect (how busy it is, the amount of new people I would be meeting,etc.), but I was looking forward to working on a different level with the PAC. Before the Learning Session, I got to help out with the pre-work. "Grading" each center's vision for their ideal treatment center and picking my favorites was a lot of fun. I loved reading how big every center's dreams were for their own perfect IBD center.

During:


Isabelle: I met so many interesting people. It was so amazing how nice and down-to-earth everyone was, including the big-shot doctors. They all introduced themselves by their first names and seemed genuinely interested in hearing about where I go to school, what I am studying and my dreams for my future and the future of the PAC. There were many planning sessions with just the PAC and it really got me excited about our future projects and being in the Learning Session environment helped make those projects feel connected to a larger purpose.

Bianca: During the Learning Session, I met so many more people than I had anticipated! It was great to be able to formally meet everyone and see how passionate each and every center is. I also got to spend a lot of time with Isabelle, Jennie, and Sami, which was awesome to get to know them on a different level, rather than throught text/emails. The past few Learning Sessions I had been to were nice and helpful, but I like to be more involved, so this Learning Session was by far the best!

After:


Isabelle: I made so many connections and learned a lot about ICN at the Learning Session. It was a lot to take in but I really enjoyed the entire event and can’t wait to go back again, this time with even more knowledge heading into it. Meeting my fellow PAC leaders Jennie and Bianca and of course seeing Sami again was so much fun and I feel like I am so close with all of them already. I am very excited for our future and the future of ICN!

Bianca: Afterwards, I was beyond excited for what this year would bring. This LS was great becuase, like I said, I got to spend a lot of time with the PAC leadership, being introduced into the PAC leadership position, setting goals, ordering room service, and just hanging out with each other.  Though the few days were fun and enjoyable, things did get hectic at times, but overall a great, well spent, work filled weekend. I cannot wait until the next LS, because the experience of each Learning Session is like no other - the connections made, the work being done, and of course the laughs and tears shared. I am beyond excited for this year!


I wish I knew _______ about IBD.

Speak out. Tell ImproveCareNow what IBD questions need to be answered.


What do you wish you knew about Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis? Do you have questions about diagnosis or treatment options? What about daily management of IBD? Maybe you've wondered if a certain drug or lifestyle change would help. These are important questions! The answers could have an incredible impact on your life, the life of your child, the lives of many patients living with IBD.

ImproveCareNow is ready to answer your important questions – but we need you to tell us what they are!


Patient Priorities IBD Learning Priorities ProjectTeens and young adults with IBD, and their parents and clinicians are invited to participate in the IBD Learning Priorities Project - a study being conducted in partnership with Patient Priorities. Participants will be asked to share questions and concerns about IBD, and it's treatment, management, etc. in a confidential survey. The results will be used to create a list of the top learning objectives for ImproveCareNow to focus on.

Speak out! Tell us what you need to know. Go to patientpriorities.com to complete your brief survey, now.


← Previous  1  2    23  24  25  26  27  28  29  30  31    35  36  Next →
if page.is_commentable? include "comments" endif

Built by Veracity Media on NationBuilder