News

ImproveCareNow (ICN) has had enormous success since it began 18 years ago, increasing remission rates for thousands of young people with IBD, transforming how pediatric IBD care is provided, enlightening and exciting clinicians and other care providers, and engaging patients and parents in a shared purpose and work. We are pleased to share our ImproveCareNow calendar year 2024 Annual Update, which includes highlights and achievements from 2024 and plans for our continued work to improve health, care, and costs for young people with IBD in 2025 and beyond.

ImproveCareNow Executive Director Kristin Howe has announced that she will step down from her role as President and Executive Network Director of ImproveCareNow in June 2025. To facilitate a smooth leadership transition and the continued momentum of ImproveCareNow, a Leadership Search Committee has assembled with representation from all ImproveCareNow stakeholder groups. The Committee has released a detailed job description and opened recruitment for a full-time ImproveCareNow Executive Director.  

The ImproveCareNow Board of Directors have announced that President & Executive Director Kristin Howe has made the decision to step down from the position of Executive Director effective June 30, 2025. 

We are pleased to announce that the ImproveCareNow (ICN) Data Operations Committee has prepared and released the ImproveCareNow 2023 Data Report. This report aims to present a brief summary of patient data captured in the ICN Outcomes Registry - a pediatric IBD-specific, enhanced health registry built by and for the ICN Network. 

According to the 2024-2025 U.S. News & World Report (USNWR) rankings, ImproveCareNow (ICN) care centers are among the best children’s hospitals in the nation, ranking at the top of the Honor Roll and in the Gastroenterology & GI Surgery specialty. USNWR rankings are based on a reputational survey sent to pediatric specialists and a data survey that is sent to a handpicked set of hospitals.

The ImproveCareNow (ICN) Network has been awarded a three-year, 2.5-million-dollar grant by The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust. The project will support the implementation of key findings from the landmark clinical trial, COMBINE (Clinical Outcomes of Methotrexate Binary treatment with INfliximab or adalimumab in practice).

ImproveCareNow’s (ICN) Board of Directors is pleased to kick off their FY 2025 term starting July 2024. 

The Board has set the following goals for the coming term:  

• Monitor the progress of the FY25-28 Strategic Plan 
• Charter a board level data committee to continue the network’s commitment to sound data governance policies  
• Continue working to ensure the financial future of the network with planning and partnerships  
• Ensure network succession planning at all levels of leadership 

Beginning in 2023, ImproveCareNow Executive Leadership and key network members completed a successful strategic planning period, which was enhanced by the deliberate inclusion of community feedback throughout the entire process of developing the network's future goals and strategy.

Through this strategic planning process, six domains were identified as critical areas of focus for the network: Outcomes; Health Equity; Leadership & Sustainability; Engagement & Community Building; Technology; Research & Innovation. Each domain reflects the goals ImproveCareNow aims to achieve over the next three years.

Notable modifications in the FY25-28 Strategic Plan include:

• The addition of a sixth domain: Research & Innovation
• A reduction in the number of goals the network takes on
• More concrete action items to drive health equity
• Revising and sharing a measurement strategy
• Increased focus on tracking whole person health, including a psychosocial metric

ImproveCareNow tracks measures of care for young patients with Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis in our network. Recently, we reported a shift in our prednisone-free clinical remission measure from 80.3% to 81.5%. This improvement means 248 additional ICN patients have achieved prednisone-free clinical remission. Analysis by ICN's data team determined that 41 care centers contributed to this shift with documented improved results in this measure.

ImproveCareNow (ICN) has had enormous success since it began 17 years ago, increasing remission rates for thousands of young people with IBD, transforming how pediatric IBD care is provided, enlightening and exciting clinicians and other care providers, and engaging patients and parents in a shared purpose and work. We are pleased to share our ImproveCareNow 2023 Annual Update, which includes highlights and achievements from 2023 and plans for our continued work to improve health, care, and costs for young people with IBD in 2024 and beyond.