Meet Megan!

Hi!  I’m Melanie, and Megan is my daughter.  She was diagnosed with poly JIA when she was 20 months old and is now 10.  Our story has included many ups and downs but today Megan is a happy 4th grader who is doing very well thanks to the great care we receive at a PR-COIN site.

It took about a year after Megan was diagnosed to get to a place where we felt her disease was under control.  We were blessed with a pediatric rheumatologist who supported our wishes to treat her JIA swiftly and aggressively.  She had joint injections, NSAIDS, and DMARD started all within a week of finding out her diagnosis.  We had no idea that kids could get arthritis, but once we knew, we wanted to get it under control as quickly as possible.  Thanks to the care we received at a top-notch center focused on improved patient care, better outcomes, and continuously working to do better and learn more, Megan is doing great today!

Once Megan’s condition was more stable and she was feeling better, we found our new “normal.”  I then started thinking about ways to be more involved.  I noticed a friend (Angela Young, Cincinnati Children’s) had posted on Facebook that she was attending a Learning Session for a pediatric rheumatology quality improvement network called PR-COIN.  I commented that I’d love to be involved and the rest is history. 

Over the past 6+ years I’ve had the pleasure of working alongside pediatric rheumatology teams from all over North America to improve the care we provide to kids with JIA and make their futures brighter.  There’s nothing more rewarding than collaborating on a project, developing materials, and then seeing them at our next visit to our hospital.  From working together to better capture patient reported outcomes, to sharing site-level results and focusing on areas such as self-management and Treat-to-Target, our experience at a PR-COIN site has been second to none. 

We are thrilled to be part of the work that’s happening in this incredible network and blessed to be on the receiving end of care by these amazing providers. 

Visit our Get Involved page to learn more about how you can get involved in PR-COIN.