Clinipace Extends Partnership with ImproveCareNow

MORRISVILLE, N.C. (Business Wire) June 23, 2009--Clinipace, a digital clinical research organization, announced today it has extended its partnership with Improve Care Now to launch and manage the ImproveCareNow Collaborative, formerly the PIBDNet Trailblazer Improvement Collaborative.

This unique collaborative, supported by Clinipace, allows selected practice sites to work together to improve the care and outcomes associated with Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. The most common serious chronic pediatric gastrointestinal disorders, these conditions affect 100,000 children and adolescents in the USA.

“Clinipace’s technology and data management services allow us to provide our patients and families at the participating practice sites data-driven, evidence-based and reliable care tailored to their individual disease status and needs,” said Dr. Richard Colletti, Network Director of the ImproveCareNow Registry, Vice Chair of the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Vermont and Associate Chief of Vermont Children’s Hospital. “We are now working with Clinipace to develop systems that will allow patients to provide their providers with updates on their disease activity and status between clinic visits.”

With 16 sites across the US from Maine to California, the collaborative has already enrolled over 2,000 patients, with plans to expand to 75 practice sites within 5 years. To date, the collaborative has succeeded in improving the detection of nutrition and growth failure; standardizing disease diagnosis and initial evaluation; and building assessment of disease severity and extent into every patient visit. Project coordinators have seen a substantial increase in the reliability of care delivery as well as a decrease in variation in care processes and outcomes among sites.

“The Clinipace electronic data capture (EDC) platform is user-friendly, reliable and meets all of our needs at a reasonable cost – which has enabled the project to continue its successful work,” commented Dr. Colletti. “Recent data, based on monthly reports from Clinipace, indicates that we are beginning to see an improvement in the remission rate, with more children having inactive disease.”

The ImproveCareNow Collaborative follows on the heels of the successful establishment of the ImproveCareNow Registry, originally established in 2005 by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the University of Vermont, with support and assistance from the American Board of Pediatrics. The original registry was designed to evaluate over time children and adolescents with IBD in an effort to better understand this debilitating disease, methods of prevention and treatment, and ultimately improve care.

The network’s initial patient registry was created using a homegrown solution. However, this system presented several challenges with regards to cost and complexity. With over 200 sites from which to collect data, ImproveCareNow required a solution with an easy-to-use web-based interface to enable data entry from any location that would then be available in real-time to investigators. According to Dr. Colletti, the Clinipace data management solution is much more affordable and provides the ability to make changes in a flexible and timely manner.

Pleased with the quality of data received from the first registry, ImproveCareNow began the second phase ImproveCareNow Collaborative project. “Due to the data similarity, we were able to save a great deal of time and money by simply adapting the first registry system for the second project,” said Dr. Colletti. “We completed the adaptation in a reasonable amount of time and it went very smoothly. We’re very satisfied.”

“We are proud of our role in supporting research and collaboration among hundreds of practices dedicated to combating IBD and related diseases,” said Christopher Porter, chief operating officer, Clinipace. “Working with ImproveCareNow, we have developed best practices and technology-driven processes that other organizations can apply to change the way they approach clinical research projects.”

About ImproveCareNow
The ImproveCareNow Collaborative (formerly the PIBDNet Trailblazer Improvement Collaborative) is working successfully to improve the quality of care delivered to children and adolescents with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) at clinic and office sites. Begun in January 2007, the number of participating practice sites has increased from 8 to 16. The initial focus has been to build a quality improvement infrastructure at each site; to develop and implement the recommendations of the ImproveCareNow Model IBD Care Guideline; to measure and report the performance at each site and all sites; to identify gaps between the recommended care and the care actually provided; and to implement quality improvement projects to close the gaps. After 2 years, the ImproveCareNow has demonstrated the effectiveness of quality improvement in improving care and outcomes in a chronic illness.

About Clinipace
Clinipace, an experienced digital clinical research organization (dCRO), provides on-demand software and clinical services for phase I-IV clinical trials, registries, and investigator-initiated grant management programs. We serve biopharmaceutical and medical device companies as well as academic medical centers. Optimized by TEMPO™, our web-based software platform, we deliver clinical trial and registry services at up to a 30% savings compared to traditional service providers. Learn more at http://www.clinipace.com.