Posted by ImproveCareNow™ on October 25, 2011
The Children's Hospital in Denver, Colorado, which made Honor Roll as one of the nation’s ten best pediatric hospitals in the U.S. News & World Report’s 2009 edition of America's Best Children’s Hospitals, joins Improve Care Now. By joining Improve Care Now, The Children's Hospital participates in the nationwide collaboration of medical care facilities dedicated to helping children and adolescents with ulcerative colitis and Crohn's Disease get better.
ImproveCareNow functions as an online information network, allowing caregivers to systematically collect and share data together about the latest treatment methods and their effectiveness. Creation and use of this kind of “global bulletin board” has led to rapid improvements in the health of those children participating. Preliminary results show a dramatic increase in the number of patients in remission.
"Until now, medical treatment has been largely a private affair, with patients and their caregivers working together as independent units. This initiative allows those in the health care system treating these diseases to compare notes frequently and to rapidly implement effective interventions," said Wallace Crandall, MD, Director, The Pediatric and Adolescent Center for Inflammatory Bowel Disease, Nationwide Children's Hospital, Columbus, OH.
The preliminary data to date shows that under the ImproveCareNow program, the percentage of patients in remission from Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis has increased more than 20 percent in a 27-month period. Translating this success to the entire U.S. population of children and teens with these diseases means 10,000 more children could be symptom-free now.
It is estimated that about one million people in the United States have Crohn’s disease andulcerative colitis, and 10% of them or 100,000 are children under the age of 18. Children with these diseases often suffer from abdominal pain, diarrhea, bloody stools, poor appetite, weight loss and poor growth, and must struggle to lead active lives. The diseases are due to a chronic inflammation of the intestinal tract.
ImproveCareNow was the pilot program of the American Board of Pediatrics aimed at enabling physicians to improve care delivery systems. Improve Care Now is now supported by the participating sites, by the U.S. Agency for Health Care Policy and Research, Centers for Education and Research in Therapeutics, and recently won a prestigious transformative research grant from the National Institutes of Health aimed at spawning innovations in chronic illness care.
For a complete list of care facilities participating in ImproveCareNow, visit our Who We Are page