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Most people experience stress at some point in their lives. Stress, especially when severe, can not only make you feel bad, it can also worsen existing health problems like heart disease, type 2 diabetes, obesity, high blood pressure, depression, and even cancer.

Healthy Mind Healthy You is a new study about how mindfulness can help people cope with stress. Funded by the Patient Centered Outcome Research Institute (PCORI) and involving 19 Patient Powered Research Networks (PPRNs), Healthy Mind Healthy You will be able to study the effects of mindfulness on a wide variety of populations and conditions.

This study is for members of ImproveCareNow. It includes patients, caregivers, and family members.

ImproveCareNow has had enormous success since it began 12 years ago, including increasing remission rates for thousands of youth with IBD, transforming how care is being provided, enlightening and exciting clinicians and other care providers, and engaging patients and parents in a common mission and work. We are pleased to share our ImproveCareNow Annual Update, which includes highlights and achievements from 2018 and plans for our continued work to improve health, care and costs for kids with IBD in 2019 and beyond.

In 2018 ImproveCareNow:

ImproveCareNow was recently included on a Healthline resource page to help direct people seeking help or information about Crohn’s disease.

ImproveCareNow has officially endorsed the 2019 Crohn’s & Colitis Congress®: A Partnership of the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation and the American Gastroenterological Association.

ImproveCareNow Executive Directors Peter Margolis, Richard Colletti and Ramninder Hansra announced on October 8, 2018, that Sarah Myers has made the decision to leave her role as Executive Improvement Director for ImproveCareNow. Sarah’s last day will be October 19.

The National Alliance for Caregiving, in partnership with the Crohn's & Colitis Foundation and ImproveCareNow, is launching a first-of-its-kind survey of Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) caregivers. The survey, which is being conducted by researchers from Crimson Research at New Mexico State University, is seeking feedback from family caregivers of children and adults living with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis, the two major types of IBD. "Through this survey, we hope to capture the power behind these unpaid friend and family caregivers and to articulate what they are doing so that they can serve as a model for caregivers in other communities," explains C. Grace Whiting, President and CEO of the National Alliance for Caregiving. 

Take the Caregiver Survey >>

We believe that many of the most innovative and potentially high-impact ideas for improving pediatric IBD care are likely to come from those living with the condition daily. Because of this, ImproveCareNow has continued to support innovative project ideas through the ImproveCareNow Patient and Parent Innovation Fund. The awardee for the second year of this program has now been announced!

ImproveCareNow Engagement Campaign Director, Chris Keck, has announced that four Community Engagement Learning Series (CELS) trainings will be offered in summer 2018. CELS trainings - designed collaboratively by patients, parents, clinicians and ImproveCareNow staff members - are intended for interested ICN community members and teams as a way to share best practices and introduce new skills in an active learning environment. Summer 2018 sessions will focus on volunteer recruitment, team and relationship building, leadership development and using personal storytelling to explain and make change in health care.

We know that many of the most innovative and potentially high-impact ideas for improving IBD care are likely to come from those living with the condition daily. In 2017 we launched the ImproveCareNow Patient and Parent Innovation Fund and funded two exciting patient-and-parent-led projects.

One of the highlights of the Spring 2018 ImproveCareNow Community Conference was getting to hear updates on the activities carried out to date by both of these project teams. The parent-led teams from both MassGeneral Hospital for Children and Stanford Children's Health have hit the ground running and already have lessons and ideas for the rest of the community to steal shamelessly.

When you give passionate people the opportunity to contribute you will be always be astounded by what can be achieved. #communityled #communityproud #icncc18s pic.twitter.com/oZg4q2s9ZP

— George Dellal (@georgedellal) April 27, 2018

ImproveCareNow has announced that it is seeking the support of its incredibly committed community, to raise funds that will support the continued inclusion of patients and parents at Community Conferences. Donations to this fund will be matched dollar-for-dollar up to $25,000 and will cover travel and registration costs for parents and patients to attend the Fall 2018 Community Conference in Chicago.