HHS Announces More Funding to Improve Healthcare
- By BSTQ Staff
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has announced additional funding under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and other programs. Under the ACA, nearly $500 million is being awarded to health centers nationwide to provide primary care services to those who need them most. The awards include approximately $350 million for 1,184 health centers to increase access to services such as medical, oral, behavioral, pharmacy and vision care. And, nearly $150 million will be awarded to 160 health centers for facility renovation, expansion or construction to increase patient or service capacity.
Also under the ACA, an additional $112 million has been awarded to help 5,000 primary care professionals in 12 states to improve the heart health of their nearly eight million patients. EvidenceNOW: Advancing Heart Health in Primary Care will make primary care practices in both urban and rural communities use the latest evidence to encourage better care, smarter spending and healthier people. The EvidenceNOW initiative establishes seven regional cooperatives composed of multidisciplinary teams of experts that will each provide quality improvement services to up to 300 small primary care practices. In addition, an eighth awardee will receive a grant to conduct an independent external evaluation of the overall EvidenceNOW initiative to study its impact on interventions on practice improvement and the delivery of cardiovascular care.
Under the Transforming Clinical Practice Initiative, 39 national and regional healthcare networks and supporting organizations will receive $685 million in awards to help equip more than 140,000 clinicians with the tools and support needed to improve quality of care, increase patients’ access to information and reduce costs.
And, more than $2.2 billion in Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program grants were awarded to cities, states and local community- based organizations. The funding supports a coordinated and comprehensive system of care to ensure that more than half a million people living with and affected by HIV in the U.S. continue to have access to critical HIV healthcare, support services and essential medications.
