More Health Care Innovation Awards announced by HHS

The recipients of 81 new Health Care Innovation Awards were announced last week by U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.

The Health Care Innovation Awards program, created through the Affordable Care Act, is setting out to fund projects that test new payment and service delivery models while delivering high-quality care and lowering costs.

Combined with the 26 awards announced last month, HHS has distributed money to 107 projects that plan to save the healthcare system an estimated $1.9 billion over the next three years.

[See also: HHS grants $122M in Health Care Innovation awards.]

The projects are located in urban and rural areas in all 50 states and in the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.

Two examples of projects included in the newly announced awards are:

• Sepsis Early Recognition and Response Initiative in Texas: Led by the Methodist Hospital Research Institute in Houston, the program takes a novel approach to identify and treat sepsis before it progresses. Sepsis is the sixth most common reason for hospitalization and typically requires double the average time in the hospital. It leads to complications such as renal failure and cognitive decline. One out of 20 patients with sepsis die within 30 days. Methodist Hospital's initiative is designed to reduce the cases of organ failure, improve patient outcomes, lead to shorter hospital stay and lower costs.

• Regional Emergency Medical Services in Nevada – along with the Renown Medical Group, the University of Nevada, the Reno School of Community Health Sciences, the Wahoe County Health District and Nevada's Office of Emergency Medical Services – is establishing a new non-emergency phone number for Community Health Early Intervention Teams that will help people get fast and appropriate care, reduce unnecessary hospitalizations and lower costs.

Awardees were chosen for their innovative solutions to the healthcare challenges facing their communities and for their focus on creating a well-trained healthcare workforce that is equipped to meet the need for new jobs in the 21st century healthcare system.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) at HHS contracted with an external organization with extensive experience in managing independent grant review processes to administer the award review process to ensure an objective review of each application. The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation within CMS will administer the awards through cooperative agreements over three years.

Look here for information on the awardees.