Colorado U.S. Senator Michael Bennet today encouraged Colorado health care businesses, providers, and systems to compete for Health Care Innovation Challenge grants for innovative projects that test creative ways to deliver high-quality medical care and save money, especially projects that rapidly hire, train and deploy health care workers.
“We have already seen how Colorado’s innovative work can serve as a model to improve care at a reduced cost across the country,” said Bennet. “This Innovation Challenge will provide more opportunities to support the work Coloradans are undertaking. I encourage Colorado health care businesses, providers and systems to take advantage of this opportunity.”
The Health Care Innovation Challenge is funded by the Affordable Care Act. It will award grants in March to applicants who will implement the most compelling new ideas to deliver better health, improved care and lower costs to people enrolled in Medicare, Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program, particularly those with the highest health care needs. The Challenge will support projects that can begin within six months. Additionally, projects that focus on rapid workforce development will be given priority when grants are awarded.
Awards will be expected to range from approximately $1 million to $30 million over three years. Applications are open to providers, payers, local government, community-based organizations and particularly to public-private partnerships and multi-payer approaches. Each grantee project will be evaluated and monitored for measurable improvements in quality of care and savings generated.
In an effort to help make grants more accessible to Colorado organizations, Bennet recently released a first-of-its-kind comprehensive collection of clear, easy-to-find and accurate information on the pilot projects, grants and workforce development initiatives available to Coloradans through the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The Guide to Grants resource is available on Bennet’s website at http://www.bennet.senate.gov/affordablecaregrants/.
Colorado’s innovative health programs have already served as a model for national programs to improve health care and reduce readmission rates. The Department of Health and Human Services’ Partnership for Patients includes a national Community-Based Care Transitions Program that Bennet secured in the ACA and is based on pioneering work being done in Denver and Grand Junction to deliver higher-quality care to patients at a significantly lower cost. A Denver Post article recently reported that a Denver care-transitions model pilot program “demonstrate[ed] hundreds of millions of dollars in potential Medicare savings.”
For more information, including a fact sheet and the Funding Opportunity Announcement, please see the Health Care Innovation Challenge initiative web site at: www.innovation.cms.gov.