ImproveCareNow supports care centers to create reliable systems of care for pediatric patients with Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis. In addition to receiving robust quality improvement (QI) training, physicians, other care providers, and parent and patient partners benefit from active collaboration with other centers, allowing them to adapt the best ideas to their setting. ImproveCareNow registry data enables these teams to analyze care and outcomes across their entire patient population and to target group of patients and individuals with tailored interventions.
Visit the Purpose & Success page to learn more about ImproveCareNow outcomes.
Learn more about how your center can join our network!
Helping You To Excel
Rather than requiring care providers to develop their own QI systems and network to achieve these capabilities, ImproveCareNow provides a robust infrastructure that allows care centers to rapidly implement model care without expensive or time-consuming infrastructure development. The tools and support offered by ImproveCareNow include:
- International collaboration among clinicians representing a broad range of patients and circumstances, for the benefit of all.
- Evidence-based information on IBD treatments and results.
- A secure, HIPAA-compliant data management infrastructure, including web-based data entry, data storage, reports and data analytics.
- Tools, forms and other aids to help with implementation of changes, including:
- A Pediatric IBD Nutrition Algorithm for improving the management of patients with unsatisfactory nutrition or growth.
- Five major interventions to improve care delivery: [1] registration of all IBD patients in a registry with data quality management, [2] consistent reliable care based on the ImproveCareNow Model IBD Care guidelines, and the application of reliability methods, [3] population management, [4] pre-visit planning, and [5] self-management support.
- Coordinated communication across all centers to provide participants with analyses about the effectiveness of changes and the work of their colleagues during the improvement process.
- A repository of interventions for application, tracking and testing.
- Education and coaching on the QI process as it pertains to IBD outcomes, including a systems framework and methods for testing and implementing improvements in care – within a single care center and across all participating centers.
- Beneficial learning and study workshops for participants
Powerful Data
Patient data and status are entered during each patient visit, and the results are automatically tabulated and entered in a national database shared by all participating organizations. The data management system provides powerful analysis and reporting capabilities, and care providers can access informative, actionable reports for their own organization as well as for all participating practices.
ImproveCareNow offers the largest database available regarding the treatment of pediatric IBD, according to the American Board of Pediatrics. Under the guidance of experts in quality improvement and care delivery, participating centers have been consistently applying innovative quality improvement methods to improve initial diagnostic testing and evaluation; to standardize the classification of the severity, phenotype and extent of disease; to improve the detection and treatment of poor nutrition and growth; support innovative research, and to improve the use of immunomodulator and other medications. Each center is utilizing improved clinical information systems and a population registry to improve documentation, monitoring and care.
Measurable Results
ImproveCareNow's data demonstrate rapid improvements in adherence to standards of care for practices that join ImproveCareNow, and significant gains in the percentage of patients with inactive disease. An examination of ImproveCareNow's data to date suggests that if all pediatric gastroenterology practices joined ImproveCareNow, then an additional 10,000 patients would move from active to inactive disease status in the United States – and this number continues to rise as the percentage of patients in remission continues to rise. This progress has led the American Board of Pediatrics to recommend participation in ImproveCareNow to all practices, and to accept participation in the program as qualification for Maintenance of Certification by the Board.
Pathway to Mastery
Launched in 2019, the Pathway to Mastery is the next evolution of the ImproveCareNow Learning Health Care System. This approach:
- Is focused on outcomes that matter most to patients and clinicians - remission and sustained remission
- Assists centers in getting 75% of their population registered into the population-based registry
- Provides support tailored to center performance, meeting centers at their learning maturity
- Allows centers to have access to organized, modular change packages linked to outcomes (remission, sustained remission)
- Develops new knowledge for care delivery by testing quality improvement strategies in areas such as adherence, nutrition, psychosocial supports and therapeutic drug monitoring.
- Provides opportunities for multidisciplinary leadership development within the community
- Revitalizes QI coaching, peer-to-peer learning and application of QI methodology
ImproveCareNow care centers join a Learning Lab within a designated pathway, enabling teams to improve in an area of interest, identifying opportunities and strengths to change outcomes for patients with Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis. Monthly Learning Lab webinars encourage the sharing of lessons learned and leveraging results by testing similar interventions, while increasing the rate of learning and application of successful strategies. In addition, leadership within each Learning Lab comes from the ImproveCareNow community, integrating clinicians, quality improvement, project management, patients, and parents to support centers.
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ImproveCareNow is ready to help you to evaluate the QI program for your own organization, and offers lots of help to make joining ImproveCareNow as easy as possible.