Recently, the ICN Exchange needed to undergo maintenance unexpectedly for two days. Some people in the ImproveCareNow Network probably noticed it more than others. I know that as someone who has come to rely on it to keep up with what centers are working on and looking at, I was keenly aware of its absence.  So you can imagine how thrilling it was when it came back online!

Now that the Exchange is back up and running (and better than ever - with plans and resources in place to prevent such outages in the future!) it occurs to me that even a quick glance at the Exchange clearly shows the richness, diversity, vibrancy—and the multifaceted dynamics of our community.

When I glanced at the Exchange today this is what I saw:

ImproveCareNow centers, like Children's Hospital of The King's Daughters, jumping in and collaborating with parents, patients, and other centers to make sure that we are all learning together!

Opportunities that highlight how much we really, really want and need to learn from each other so we can collaborate even better!

Multidisciplinary partners, like the RD group, are staying connected with each other and getting organized so they can take on projects that will build their visibility and leadership in ImproveCareNow.

ImproveCareNow QI teams are becoming even more accountable and transparent in their day-to-day QI work.

Parent Partners are setting their 90 day goals, tracking their progress and keeping the Network informed!

And finally, amazing patients around the country are teaching us more and more every day.

And that is just a quick glance! So thank you to everyone who has been a part of helping us build this vibrant community. I, for one, can’t wait to see where the community goes next!

The ICN Exchange is an internal knowledge-sharing platform that the ImproveCareNow Network uses to communicate, collaborate and innovate across the miles. Clinicians, Researchers, Patients, Families and Improvers are able to log into the ICN Exchange and share seamlessly and steal shamelessly!  The ICN Exchange has enabled ImproveCareNow to extend our “all teach, all learn” collaborative approach to medicine far beyond our monthly webinars and twice-annual Learning Session. It allows us to identify ideas and best practices in pediatric IBD care and introduce them into the care delivery process much faster—improving care for our patients now.

Look on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and many other social media outlets over the past few weeks, and ImproveCareNow is all over the place. Many quotes about “parents as partners,” “real patient engagement,” and “amazing collaboration.” It’s fantastic to see the buzz we are generating. It’s huge, and important, and feels like it will catalyze many others who are working on similar efforts to jump in and do the same. We have a lot to teach now, even as we learn. It’s helping us achieve health outcomes we did not think possible and will probably help others do the same.

But what does this mean at the micro level, in the day-to-day shuffle (and sometimes tornado!) of getting the real work of running this complicated Network done? I don’t pretend not to realize that the care teams out there across in our 65 centers are doing the hard work – planning visits in advance, getting to know our new automated reporting tools, and trying to fit this all into their already complex clinic workflows. They (with the families they serve) are real heroes in this Network. But a lot of work also goes on at the ImproveCareNow leadership and staff levels to make it all possible. And I consider myself very fortunate to be in the position, as part of this team, where I get to see how many of the pieces fit together, and witness the not so subtle shift in what it means to “work for ImproveCareNow.”

I’m going to use our recently completed Spring Learning Session as an example. Even just one year ago, planning the Learning Session meant that the core Quality Improvement (QI) project team and I looked at Network priorities and recent lessons learned, identified who would do a good job speaking about these things, and pieced together what usually turned out to be a good agenda for a good meeting. Parents and patients were starting to attend Learning Sessions, but were on the fringes and some would tell you they spent their weekend trying to figure out where they fit in. We felt good about including them, but we didn’t feel good about not understanding quite how we all fit together.

What a difference a year can make! In planning for the Spring 2014 Learning Session I found myself watching as unprecedented collaborations between clinicians and parents, data managers and parents, took place across the miles. In one instance, what began as an offhand comment about the potential for a parent panel at the Learning Session, which would address how centers can better engage families in QI work, became a series of many, many emails between a clinician, several parents, and ImproveCareNow staff. Over three months we worked together to co-design the objectives and draft a call-to-action that the panel could deliver to the Network. The result was one of the highlights of this Learning Session.

In another instance, a parent asked for permission to use Network remission data in his presentation—the kind of data that he knew could illustrate the ImproveCareNow story best. Again, I found myself watching an amazing email discussion unfold between the parent, our ImproveCareNow data manager and the centers that agreed to have their data displayed in a novel way by a parent. This kind of conversation about data (“send me that,” “no, let’s try it this way,” “yes, that will have the most impact”) happens all the time within ImproveCareNow. But until now, had been limited to QI, data management, communications, and IT staff.

I used to believe ImproveCareNow staff and leadership needed to work for the clinicians, parents, patients and others that make up this Network…they were partners, but also customers and we had to make it all work well for them. I now realize it’s all about working with them so they can help us get things right. So yes, I work with the many care teams who are providing more proactive and reliable medical, nursing, nutritional, social work, and psychological support to pediatric patients with IBD. But I also work with Justin, Jamie, Sami, JenJo, Jennie, Tania, Beth, David, and many, many others who have ideas and experiences that also need to be integrated into this learning health system.

Today these patient and parent partners email me just as any of my other coworkers would. They email me during the work day, but also at 11:00 PM and 4:00 AM, during their time. They do so despite having busy full-time jobs inside or outside of their homes and despite the extra time they already devote to caring for children with a chronic illness. They share their ideas, ask for my input, worry about pushing us too fast (I often hear: “we’re not going to get you all fired, are we?”), worry about not pushing us fast enough, and ask how my kids are doing. I push them to post things on our internal knowledge-sharing platform, the ICN Exchange, just like I push the care centers. They are creating 90-day goals to focus and guide their work just like the care centers.  Most of all, they are helping us walk together into a new model for running this Network, understanding we won’t get it right every time, caring about the impact on others who are new to this level of partnership too, and above all, making sure we all stay connected to what this work is really about:

Imagine being a patient who arrives at the clinic and can really sense that the providers are ready to meet your needs!

Imagine knowing that your whole care team sat down a week in advance to review your disease course over the last six months, track down any missing lab results, and troubleshoot with colleagues to figure out why it’s been so tough to keep your disease in remission.  Imagine getting a call from the nurse a full week before clinic to ask what has been going on since your last visit and, as a result, the social worker is in clinic and ready to discuss solutions to the issues you are having at school.  Imagine the lab having your orders well in advance so that the collection tube that they have to use, but don’t keep stocked, is ready and waiting. This time you don’t have to wait while they run down to the supply room, making you late for school and your parents late for work.

The automated pre-visit planning tools that ImproveCareNow centers are now able to use will help make scenarios just like these a reality. Providers will have detailed summary information about their patients available at their fingertips when they need it...before the visit.  They will have a concise, printable tool that can be easily shared with the rest of the care team. Ideally, this tool will be used to guide conversations with parents and patients before they come to clinic so that they can be a part of planning their visit, not just passive participants in it.

The result will be more reliable, proactive and individualized pediatric IBD care.

[editor's note: submitted by Sarah Myers, MPH, RN | Lead Quality Improvement Consultant for the ImproveCareNow Network]