The Health Care Innovation Challenge, which will provide up to $1 billion in grants from the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation to “test creative ways to deliver high-quality health care services and lower costs,” was launched by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on November 14.
“The Innovation Challenge is an exciting opportunity to design creative care models that expand the role of direct-care workers in an array of long-term care settings,” said Steve Edelstein, PHI national policy director. “It also signals the importance of HHS’s commitment to models that integrate these frontline workers into the care team to improve the care outcomes for elders and people living with disabilities.”
Grants ranging from approximately $1 million to $30 million for a three-year period will be awarded to applicants proposing the most compelling new ideas to deliver better health, improve care, and lower costs for people enrolled in Medicare, Medicaid, and CHIP — particularly those with the highest health care needs.
New Models of Workforce Development and Deployment
The Innovation Center will give preference to proposals that include “development and/or deployment of health care workers in new, innovative ways.” For example:
- new roles and skills for an existing workforce,
- new types of workers to support core transformation of the health care delivery system, and
- team-based models as better methods to serve a particular population.
Successful proposals, according to the grant guidelines, must include an innovative, explicit workforce development plan, one that requires new roles for all staff engaged in the new models of care and new skills to manage team building and care coordination.
“Training and educational experiences will be needed” to develop the skills required for the “health care workforce of the future,” states the announcement, which also notes that “preference will be given to projects that implement their care improvement activities faster than six months.”
PHI Resource Center for Grant Applicants
PHI’s core specialties, which align with the aims of the program, are:
- skill-building for key leadership, communication, and problem-solving competencies necessary for high-functioning teams and exceptional care and customer service,
- re-engineering the workforce, including new and innovative ways to train and deploy direct-care workers and nurses, and
- training direct-care staff using adult learner-centered methods that engage learners and increase successful outcomes.
PHI therefore has developed a resource center for grant applicants and is encouraging those submitting proposals to contact our organizational change and workforce development experts to discuss potential partnerships. (Contact Susan Misiorski, PHI Director of Training and Organizational Development, at smisiorski@phinational.org.)
Visit the PHI website for more information on the Health Care Innovation Challenge, including the grant objectives, funding opportunity announcement, and a portal to submit a brief letter of intent to apply.
The Innovation Center was created under the Affordable Care Act as part of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).
More information on the Health Care Innovation Challenge is available on the CMS website.
Important Health Care Innovation Challenge Dates
- Letter of intent: due December 19, 2011
- Applications: due January 27, 2012
- Awards Granted: March 2012
– Originally published at PHInational.org by Deane Beebe