Posted by ImproveCareNow™ on October 28, 2013
Care centers participating in ImproveCareNow must assemble a multidisciplinary group of people who comprise what we call the “core QI team”. This team meets regularly, reviews data to identify areas for improvement, uses PDSA cycles to test and determine what changes will result in improvements, and steadily implements meaningful changes that result in more reliable and effective care for their IBD patients.
They do this work on top of everything else. And on certain days there is no denying it feels like a grind. That’s why it was so uplifting when ImproveCareNow Scientific Director, Dr. Peter Margolis shared the exciting news that ImproveCareNow had been recognized, by name, in opening remarks given by Rick Kronick, PhD the new director for the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ).
Dr. Kronik indicated that all research is viewed with a skeptical eye in tight economic times so it is important to be able to show measurable progress towards the goal of an impact on outcomes. He then called out ImproveCareNow as a leading example of the work AHRQ should be sponsoring because of the very significant impact we have had (in part because of the support of the Enhanced Registries project).
While it may not be a primary objective of the ImproveCareNow Network, to change the health care system, it is clearly a byproduct of our work. We have demonstrated that by working together (sharing seamlessly and stealing shamelessly) we can accelerate improvements in care at a single institution, and across a whole system of care centers – thereby raising the standard of care for pediatric IBD.
We are excited to be continuing our relationship with AHRQ. We learned in September that we were awarded a grant to continue work on the Enhanced Registry – we call it ICN2. ICN2 is the largest and fastest growing health registry in the world to date.