Our Spring Live Online Community Conference (LOCC)is right around the corner – on Thursday, April 23, 2026. ImproveCareNow’s Executive Director Becky Johnson Rescola speaks to why she’s excited for this year’s Spring Conference and shares more about our plenary speaker, community proposed sessions, and lunch & learn opportunity! Read her reflections below and be sure to join us as sessions run from 10 AM ET (9 AM CT, 8 AM MT, 7 AM PT) to 5 PM ET. Registration is completely free for patients and families, and rates have been reduced for our care center partners. Whether you can join us for one hour or the full day, you’ll walk away with actionable insights and a stronger sense of community.
I love the promise of spring! Brighter days, warmer weather, and a sense of renewal. After the winter months, it feels like a jumpstart to the year ahead and an opportunity to gain momentum in our collaborative work.
This spring, I’m so excited to be part of ImproveCareNow’s Live Online Community Conference (LOCC). Our online conferences launched in 2020 – no explanation required – and have remained an important touchpoint for our community. While we recognize it’s not quite the same as being together in person, it does create more accessible opportunities for patients, parents, and clinical teams to join in an affordable and easy way.
I’m also very excited to hear insights from our plenary speaker, Dr. Alan Moss. Alan is the Chief Scientific Officer at the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation and a practicing gastroenterologist. He’s going to share the latest on IBD research as part of this plenary session. I worked on Alan’s team at the Foundation and it’s particularly special for me to welcome him to the ICN community.
In addition to Alan’s keynote, we have sessions that we hope will appeal to all members of our community, focused on clinical practice, research, data, QI, and psychosocial support. We’ll also hear from key stakeholders around communicating the value of ICN participation within your centers. We’ll be talking about Pathway to Mastery and you won’t want to miss our patient Ignite talk. Finally, I hope you’ll join us for lunch (or breakfast for our West Coast friends) as we learn a bit more about education and support services offered through the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation.
And in case you missed it – we slashed prices this year! We want to encourage participation by making the LOCC more affordable for you. We hope to carry this momentum into the fall as well, so stay tuned. We know your time and commitment to the network are invaluable, and we’d like to ensure we remove barriers to participation – including conference registration fees.
There’s still plenty of time to register! We hope to see you there as the community welcomes brighter days and a renewed energy for the work ahead. As always, I am grateful for you and all you are doing on behalf of the IBD community. See you on April 23!
Becky Johnson Rescola
President & Executive Director for ImproveCareNow
🌟 Plan Your Time With Us – Our #ICNCC26S Agenda is Ready for You
💚 Learn more about what to expect in our LOCC preview post
💙 Preview and download the #ICNCC26S agenda
💚 Read more in-depth descriptions of each of the community proposed breakouts
🌟 About Live Online Community Conferences
Our annual Live Online Community Conferences are an opportunity for everyone who may be interested – patients, parents/caregivers, clinicians, researchers, collaborators, improvers, friends – to join us for a condensed and convenient virtual meeting format. Leveraging the collaborative power of our Learning Health Community, we come together to explore important and timely IBD topics, to raise awareness of the IBD lived experience, share new information and best practices, ask questions and move forward together to advance our mission of transforming health, care and costs for all children and adolescents with Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis.
ℹ️ Registration for the Live Online Community Conference closes on April 21, 2026 at 5PM ET – let us know you’re coming!
🌟 Continuing Education at #ICNCC26S
In support of improving patient care, this activity has been planned and implemented by Cincinnati Children’s and ICN, Inc. Cincinnati Children’s is jointly accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME), the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE), and the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC), to provide continuing education for the healthcare team. This activity has been approved for AMA PRA Category 1 Credit™. This activity was planned by and for the healthcare team, and learners will receive Interprofessional Continuing Education (IPCE) credits for learning and change. This activity is approved for continuing nursing education (CNE) contact hours. Completion of this CME activity, which includes learner assessment and feedback, enables the learner to earn points in the American Board of Pediatrics’ (ABP) Maintenance of Certification (MOC) program. ImproveCareNow is also pursuing Social Worker CEU credit and Psychology CEU credit for this learning event.
ImproveCareNow is made up of more than 100 care centers and has a presence on three continents, with 90% of the highest ranked pediatric gastroenterology programs in the U.S., including many U.S. News and World Reports 2025/2026 Honor Roll Children’s Hospitals as members. With 1,180 pediatric gastroenterologists and more than 33,000 active IBD patients, ImproveCareNow reaches approximately 55% of IBD patients in the U.S. cared for by pediatric gastroenterologists. ImproveCareNow Community Conferences present the ideal opportunity to engage with these committed healthcare providers, patients and parents, and to learn about recent results in our research and improvement efforts.
👀 Get #InTheLOOP with LOCC stories on the ImproveCareNow blog >>
Everything we do in ImproveCareNow is magnified by the efforts of thousands of improvers! No action is too small; here are some ways to get started:
💚 Join the Patient Advisory Council (patients with IBD who are 14+)
💙 Join the Parent/Family Advisory Council (parents/caregivers of young people with IBD)
💚 Participate in our Current Research Opportunities (subject to eligibility)
💙 RSVP to join us at one of our upcoming ICN events
💚 Subscribe to blog updates to stay #InTheLOOP with our IBD stories
💙 Download, use & share our free, co-produced IBD resources
💚 Connect with our welcoming & supportive pediatric IBD community and receive IBD resources, community stories, and ICN updates & opportunities
💙 Donate to ImproveCareNow – we are proud to use every dollar donated to advance our mission!
Our mission is to transform the health, care and costs for all children and adolescents with Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis (Inflammatory Bowel Disease or IBD) by building a sustainable collaborative chronic care network.
