Posted by ImproveCareNow™ on October 25, 2011
ImproveCareNow is a quality improvement project that focuses on measuring and improving the care we provide for our patients with IBD. Since we joined ImproveCareNow in October 2007, we have enrolled 184 patients at UNC and have recorded over 400 visits to our clinic. These patients, including your child, are included in an online database which stores information on more than 2000 pediatric IBD patients around the country. At each visit, we record the patient’s height, weight, medication use, and related lab values to be stored in the database. We also take note of nutritional status, disease status, and growth.
Examples of changes that have been made within our clinic include the following:
- Pre-visit planning: Health care providers review medication use, disease status, and other relevant issues in advance of your child’s clinic visit. This allows your child’s provider to spend a few extra minutes thinking about the best care for your child in advance of your child’s visit.
- Excel-based population management tool: This allows us to track how our patients are doing in an effort to identify patients with ongoing issues related to growth, nutrition, and disease flares.
By using these and other seemingly small changes, we are trying to improve the health of our patients. Our preliminary results suggest these changes may be helping. Since October 2007, the proportion of our IBD patients with “inactive” disease (symptom free and in good health) has increased from about 40% to nearly 60%. We are very excited about this, and we hope to see more promising improvements in our patients as we continue this project.
As ImproveCareNow grows, we want to extend an invitation to all of our parents and patients to learn more about the project and what we’re accomplishing. A new website has been launched at ImproveCareNow.org that has more information on the project and news about pediatric IBD. It is still a work in progress, but more information should be added over the next few months. Please feel free to explore and share it with others. If you have any questions or concerns about the status of the project, please contact Katie McLean, Research Coordinator.
Thank you all so much for participating in this study!
Sincerely,
ImproveCareNow Team: Michael Kappelman, MD, MPH; Sandra Kim, MD; Beth McLean, RN; Christi Hall, RD; Katie McLean, Research Coordinator
Contact Info: Katie McLean (Phone: 919-843-9547; Email: [email protected])