Health IT, Hospitals, Policy

CMS launches $840M effort to spur medical practice ‘transformation’

The CMS Innovation Center today rolled out a four-year, $840 million initiative that will support […]

The CMS Innovation Center today rolled out a four-year, $840 million initiative that will support 150,000 providers in sharing best practices while cutting down on wasteful spending.

The effort, called the Transforming Clinical Practice Initiative, is a first-of-its kind effort from the public sector and large-scale investment dedicated solely to sharing information among physicians. CMS estimates that only about 185,000 of the country’s doctors take part in similar programs that strive to transform industry practices through the use of collaboration and technology.

Among other goals, the initiative hopes to capitalize on IT that can speed up access to medical records and data for both the patients and clinicians.

The effort is broken down into two key networks – practice transformation networks and support and alignment networks. The former will get the majority of funding, totaling about $670 million distributed through 35 grants ranging between $2 million and $50 million. But funding is not simply for IT, which cannot exceed 10 percent of of the total grant.

Practice transformation networks are described as “peer-based learning networks designed to coach, mentor and assist clinicians in developing core competencies specific to practice transformation”

Support and alignment networks are described as providing “ a system for workforce development utilizing national and regional professional associations and public-private partnerships that are currently working in practice transformation efforts.” That includes providers serving rural and medically under served communities. Such networks will receive a total of about $30 million ranging between $1 million and $3 million.

CMS hopes the effort, if successful, could save as much as $1 billion to $5 billion by preventing some five million hospitalizations over four years.

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