Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation Receives $3.3 Million from The Helmsley Charitable Trust to Improve Urgent Care Management of Crohn’s Disease

NEW YORK, NY – The Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation announced today that it has received a $3.3 million grant from The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust to improve the urgent care management of Crohn’s disease through IBD Qorus®, the Foundation’s flagship quality of care program. 

Crohn’s disease is characterized by intermittent flares of disease activity and symptoms. Patients with flares often need to access urgent and unplanned healthcare services, such as the emergency department (ED), where they are likely to undergo testing and receive treatments, such as steroids or opioids, that could interfere with their long-term disease management plan. To address this problem, the Foundation seeks to reduce the need for unplanned urgent care among Crohn’s patients by building upon the innovative care improvements developed and evaluated in IBD Qorus sites across the country.  

“Thanks to the dedicated efforts of the healthcare providers participating in IBD Qorus, we were able to identify and implement specific interventions in various clinic settings that helped us pinpoint those patients at increased risk and intervene before an unplanned visit to the ED. After applying these interventions in practice and analyzing the data, improvement was noted across multiple measures, including the need for urgent care, hospitalization, steroids, and opioids among patients participating in the program,” said Donald Lum, MD, IBD practitioner at the Oregon Clinic in Portland, Oregon and Deputy Director for IBD Qorus.

With the generous support of The Helmsley Charitable Trust, the Foundation will leverage these findings to improve urgent care management, translate the practice-based interventions into implementable best practices, and disseminate those best practices to participating IBD Qorus sites for effective implementation. The Foundation will also engage in efforts to inform clinics outside of the IBD Qorus network of these best practices.

“The Helmsley Charitable Trust is committed to improving the lives of people living with Crohn’s disease, while investing in research that seeks a cure,” said Pretima Persad, Program Officer of Helmsley’s Crohn’s Disease program. “Improving urgent care management will improve outcomes and quality of life for those living with Crohn’s disease, filling a critical gap.” 

“We view this urgent care management project as a way to elevate the level of care patients receive across the country, leveraging and building on the strong collaborative infrastructure of IBD Qorus. As the learnings and best practices are shared outside of the program, it is our vision that these interventions will become part of standard Crohn’s disease care, improving the quality of life for all patients,” said Michael Osso, President & CEO of the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation. 

IBD Qorus is the first-ever adult IBD learning health system, focused on improving health outcomes and how care is delivered to patients across a range of U.S. geographic locations, practice settings, and disease complexities. More than 50 centers across the nation are currently participating in this program. 

IBD Qorus is also made possible by the support of AbbVie, Eli Lilly & Company, Ferring Pharmaceuticals, Inc., and Takeda Pharmaceuticals U.S.A., Inc. 

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About the Helmsley Charitable Trust

The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust aspires to improve lives by supporting exceptional efforts in the U.S. and around the world in health and select place-based initiatives. Since beginning active grantmaking in 2008, Helmsley has committed more than $3 billion for a wide range of charitable purposes. For more information, visit http://helmsleytrust.org.