Innovation Center initiative now accepting applications; APhA encourages pharmacists to participate.
The CMS Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (Innovation Center) has launched the Innovation Advisors Program. APhA is encouraging pharmacists to participate.
This new initiative is designed to support skilled professionals in health systems to refine, apply, and sustain the managerial and technical skills necessary to drive delivery system reform to help Medicare, Medicaid, and Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) beneficiaries.
APhA is tracking pharmacist interest in the program and requests that pharmacists who intend to submit an application send an e-mail to iqi@aphanet.org.
“Crucial to the efforts of transforming the health care system is supporting individuals who can test and refine new models to drive delivery system reform,” CMS wrote in a fact sheet. “The Innovation Center seeks to deepen the capacity for transformation by creating a network of experts in improving the delivery system for Medicare, Medicaid, and CHIP beneficiaries.”
The program will allow skilled individuals in the health care system to deepen key skill sets, including health care economics and finance, population health, systems analysis, and operations research.
As many as 200 Innovation Advisors around the country will be selected and developed in the program’s first year, and their home organization or group will be eligible to receive a stipend of up to $20,000 to support their activities, including travel.
The first group of Innovation Advisors will start a 6-month intensive orientation and applied research period in December 2011. During the initial 6-month period, advisors will commit up to 10 hours per week, with similar or less involvement thereafter. They’ll meet together at the regional level each quarter and at CMS in Baltimore once each year. Advisors will not be employees of CMS or the government.
CMS announced on October 17 that the Innovation Advisors Program was accepting applications from providers in health systems and any professional employed by a public health or health care facility, institution, or department.
The selection criteria for applicants include career achievements; their pre-existing skill set and its relevance to transforming the health care system for these beneficiaries; the quality of a proposed innovation project in their home organization; their organization’s explicit commitment to their work; and management experience.
The deadline to apply is November 15. Innovation Advisors will be notified of their selection by mid-December 2011.
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