Health Care Innovation Challenge

[from US DOLETA] The Health Care Innovation Challenge will award up $1 billion in grants 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 CHIP, particularly those with the highest health care needs.

All proposals should include the following elements:

• Workforce Development and Deployment: Proposed models should include the development and/or deployment of health care workers in new, innovative ways. The review process will favor innovative proposals that demonstrate the ability to create the workforce of the future.

• Speed to Implementation: All proposed models must be operational or capable of rapid expansion within six months.

• Model Sustainability: All proposals are expected to define a clear pathway to sustainability, and should consider scalability and diffusion of the proposed model. Awards will range from approximately $1 million to $30 million for a three-year period. Applications are open to providers, payers, local government, public-private partnerships and multi-payer collaboratives. Each grantee project will be monitored for measurable improvements in quality of care and savings generated.

The Health Care Innovation Challenge will encourage applicants to include new models of workforce development and deployment that efficiently support their service delivery model proposal. Enhanced infrastructure to support more cost effective system-wide function is also a critical component of health care system transformation, and applicants are encouraged to include this as an element of their proposals.

Application Information All applications must be submitted electronically through www.grants.gov. Applicants are strongly encouraged to use the review criteria information provided in the "Application Review Information" section in the funding opportunity announcement (FOA), to help ensure that the proposal adequately addresses all the criteria that will be used in evaluating the proposals.

Letter of Intent: December 19, 2011

Applications are due, January 27, 2012

Anticipated Award Date: March 30, 2012

CMS Innovation Center staff will be hosting an informational webinar on the Health Care Innovation Challenge for all interested individuals and organizations on Thursday, November 17, 2011 from 2:00-3:30pm ET. Staff will provide an overview of the initiative and be available to answer questions from the audience.

Please visit the webinar site at http://www.visualwebcaster.com/event.asp?id=83452 to join. No advance registration is required.

Participants wishing to only listen to audio may dial 888-567-1602 or 201-604-5049 and request "Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation Webcast" (no passcode). Reminder, participants will only be able to ask questions via chat feature online.

A recording will be available following the webinar.

To learn more about the Health Care Innovation Challenge and information about the application process please read the Funding Opportunity Announcement

To read an overview of the Health Care Innovation Challenge, including important deadlines, please read our Fact Sheet (PDF).