On Monday, the White House announced the start of the Health Care Innovation Challenge, a new program supplying a $1 billion investment designed to encourage participation and innovation from doctors, administrators and other health care professionals in order to create greater efficiency and greater care in the health care system.
At the rollout of the initiative, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius stated, “We’ve taken incredible steps to reduce health care costs and improve care, but we can’t wait to do more.” She continued, “Both public and private community organizations around the country are finding innovative solutions to improve our health care system and the Health Care Innovation Challenge will help jump start these efforts.”
The program will target better methods of operations and care for enrollees of Medicare, Medicaid, and CHIP (Children’s Health Insurance Program), with particular focus on those enrolled with more critical health care needs.
The funding for this program is made possible through the Affordable Care Law.
According to the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation website the monetary grants will be open for competition to “providers, payers, local government, public-private partnerships and multi-payer collaboratives.” The awards will be based upon the implementation of ideas and innovations which create better efficiency and reduce costs of health care, create jobs in the health care field, and help doctors, nurses, and other professionals in the health care system provide better medical care to their patients.
Each grant will range from $1 million to $30 million over a three year period, and the programs will be monitored to ensure that they are succeeding in their stated objectives.
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services administrator Dr. Donald M. Berwick, M.D. remarked, “When I visit communities across the country, I continually see innovative solutions at the very ground…By putting more programs like this in place and more ‘boots on the ground,’ these types of programs can truly transform our health care system.”
Applicants must provide a letter of intent by December 19, 2011 and submit an application by January 27, 2012. Awards are expected to be announced on March 30, 2012.
This program is part of the Obama Administration’s “We Can’t Wait” initiative, which is a series of legal Executive Branch steps designed to move America forward while Republicans in the U.S. Congress, for mere political purpose, continue to block critical and necessary legislation.
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