The results are in! We would like to say a massive thank you to all the 26 children and 75 parents in New Zealand who participated in Crohn’s Colitis Cure’s study about the design of “CCCare-P”, a brand new, paediatric-specific component of the existing Crohn's Colitis Care (CCCare) IBD management system.

Children with IBD and their parents in both Australia and New Zealand were asked to participate in an online questionnaire asking what they thought was important for inclusion in this new IBD-specific software. You may even recall seeing an advertisement on our social media accounts calling out for participants. Based on your feedback, the software now includes several different modules pertaining to “Quality of Life”, “Mental Health”, “General IBD Facts”, “You Own Medical History”, “Self-Management Tasks”, “Transition Readiness” and “Satisfaction”, as well as “Pain Measurement”, “Diet & Nutrition”, “Access to Care” and “Social Relationships”. This research study and the subsequent build of the paediatric software is being funded by The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust.

The paediatric software is now going through a process known as “beta-testing”, where clinicians, patients and parents will interact with the software in real-world clinical practice and provide feedback to the software developers at 4 test sites in ANZ. Adjustments will then be made to ensure it is optimised to help everyone improve patient outcomes for people living with IBD. In New Zealand, Christchurch Hospital will be one of the very first paediatric sites to try out this new software, and there are plans in place for four more New Zealand sites to commence using CCCare in 2022. Be sure to keep an eye out – CCCare could be coming to your care centre soon!