HHS Announces $840 Million Transforming Clinical Practice Initiative to Improve Patient Care and Lower Costs
- By BSTQ Staff
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has launched the Transforming Clinical Practice Initiative, an $840 million investment over the next four years to support 150,000 clinicians. The initiative will fund successful applicants who work directly with medical providers to rethink and redesign their practices, moving from systems driven by quantity of care to ones focused on patients’ health outcomes and coordinated healthcare systems. The applicants can include group practices, healthcare systems, medical provider associations and others. The effort will help clinicians develop strategies to share, adapt and further improve the quality of care they provide while keeping costs down. Strategies could include giving doctors better access to patient information (such as prescription drug use to help them take their medicines properly); expanding the number of ways patients are able to communicate with clinicians caring for them; improving the coordination of patient care by primary care providers, specialists and the broader medical community; and using electronic health records on a daily basis to examine data on quality and efficiency.
“The administration is partnering with clinicians to find better ways to deliver care, pay providers and distribute information to improve the quality of care we receive and spend our nation’s dollars more wisely,” said HHS Secretary Sylvia M. Burwell. “We all have a stake in achieving these goals and delivering for patients, providers and taxpayers alike.” The initiative is one part of a strategy advanced by the Affordable Care Act.
