HHS awards $1.5M to health data pilots
The Department of Health and Human Services awarded $1.5 million Wednesday to seven groups through cooperative agreements to improve the transfer of health data.
The seven awards are spilt between two initiatives — the High Impact Pilot and the Standard Exploration Award — the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT announced at the Health Datapalooza Conference in May.
Splitting the $1.5 million pot, the seven teams at completion of the yearlong pilots will share with HHS their lessons learned to help advance the department’s understanding, use and interoperability of digital health information to ultimately improve patient care.
“We are excited to support these innovative projects that advance the use of common standards to improve care, particularly in the categories of comprehensive medication management, laboratory data exchange, and care coordination,” Vindell Washington, HHS’ national coordinator for health IT, said in a new statement. “These programs will serve as key building blocks for improving the patient and provider experience with the flow of health information.”
The Health Collaborative; Lantana Consulting Group; RxREVU, Inc.; and the University of Utah won High Impact Pilot awards. The Arkansas Office of Health IT, the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center and Sysbiochem won the Standard Exploration Awards. Both programs focus on specific interoperability needs like “comprehensive medication management, laboratory data exchange, and care coordination.”
More than 35 groups applied for the awards, but the seven finalists were chosen based on their ability to scale and address health IT challenges, perceived impact, alignment with department goals, creativity, innovation and technical approach.
The participants will report on their results by Sept. 15, 2017.
