Calif. Groups Among Recipients of $685M in Grants To Boost Care
On Tuesday, HHS announced that 39 organizations, including four in California, have been awarded a total of $685 million in grants to help improve patient care, the Wall Street Journal reports.
According to the Journal, the grants are part of the Obama administration's effort to shift from fee-for-service to value-based payment models (Armour, Wall Street Journal, 9/29).
Grant Details
HHS' Transforming Clinical Practice Initiative awards include:
- 29 Practice Transformation Networks, which will offer clinicians technical assistance and peer-support; and
- 10 Support and Alignment Networks, which will focus on creating collaboratives for providers to improve care (CMS Fact Sheet, 9/29).
Grant recipients include:
- Employer groups;
- Public health departments (Dickson, Modern Healthcare, 9/29);
- Health collaborations;
- Hospital groups;
- Physician association; and
- Universities (Wall Street Journal, 9/29).
The grants are projected to provide assistance to more than 140,000 clinicians (Modern Healthcare, 9/29).
Of the 39 grant recipients, four California-based entities received Practice Transformation Network grants:
- Children's Hospital of Orange County;
- Local Initiative Health Authority of Los Angeles County;
- Nevada City-based National Rural Accountable Care Consortium; and
- San Francisco-based Pacific Business Group on Health (CMS Fact Sheet, 9/29).
According to the Journal, the funding will be used to support various ambulatory programs, including continuing to educate and train providers on how to use patient data to improve care. The grant recipients' programs aim to improve patient outcomes and communication through various strategies, such as enabling patients to email their providers (Wall Street Journal, 9/29).
HHS Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell said in a release, "These awards will give patients more of the information they need to make informed decisions about their care and give clinicians access to information and support to improve care coordination and quality outcomes" (HHS release, 9/29). She added, "Supporting doctors and other health care professionals change the way they work is critical to improving quality and spending our health care dollars more wisely" (Modern Healthcare, 9/29).
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