Health Care Innovation Awards: North Carolina

 

Notes and Disclaimers: 

  • Projects shown may also be operating in other states (see the Geographic Reach)
  • Descriptions and project data (e.g. gross savings estimates, population served, etc.) are 3 year estimates provided by each organization and are based on budget submissions required by the Health Care Innovation Awards application process.
  • While all projects are expected to produce cost savings beyond the 3 year grant award, some may not achieve net cost savings until after the initial 3-year period due to start-up-costs, change in care patterns and intervention effect on health status.

 

DUKE UNIVERSITY

Project Title: “From clinic to community:  achieving health equity in the southern United States”
Geographic Reach: Mississippi, North Carolina, West Virginia
Funding Amount: $9,773,499
Estimated 3-Year Savings: $20.8 million

Summary: Duke University, in conjunction with the University of Michigan National Center for Geospatial Medicine, Durham County Health Department (Durham County, NC), Cabarrus Health Alliance (Cabarrus County, NC), Mississippi Public Health Institute (Quitman County, MS), Marshall University, and Mingo County Diabetes Coalition (Mingo County, WV) is receiving an award for its plan to reduce death and disability from Type 2 diabetes mellitus among fifty-seven thousand people in four Southeastern counties who are underserved and at-risk populations in the Southeast. The program will use informatics systems that stratify patients and neighborhoods by risk, target communities in need of higher-intensity interventions, and serve as the basis for decision support and real-time monitoring of interventions. Local home care teams will provide patient-centered coordinated care to improve outcomes and lower cost — expecting to reduce hospital and emergency room admissions and reduce through preventive care the need for amputations, dialysis, and cardiac procedures with estimated savings of over $20 million. Over the three-year period, this collaborative program will train an estimated 88 health care workers and create an estimated 31 new jobs. These workers include new types of health workers including information officers, health integrators, and community health workers, who will use novel technologies to facilitate communication, education, and care delivery.

 

NORTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY    

Project Title: "Integrating industrial and system engineering (ISE) methods into healthcare improvement"
Geographic Reach: Massachusetts, North Carolina, Washington
Funding Amount: $8,000,002
Estimated 3-Year Savings: $60,780,907

Summary: The Healthcare Systems Engineering Institute at Northeastern University is receiving an award to establish a regional system engineering extension center that will embed proven evidence-based industrial and system engineering (ISE) improvement methods into local healthcare organizations, similar to as used in other complex industries. This demonstration project will launch a network of similar centers across the U.S. to significantly improve care, cost, safety, and quality starting first in Massachusetts, expanding to Washington and North Carolina states during the grant period, and continuing thereafter. Engineers and healthcare professionals will be cross trained in applying these methods to important healthcare problems and work together in engineer-clinician project teams, integrating industrial engineers directly into health systems, establishing internship and summer residency programs, and creating trans-disciplinary curricula for engineers, clinicians, and healthcare managers. The overall goal is to measurably demonstrate the clear value of ISE methods and such a regional extension program, expanded nationally, to significantly lower costs, improve access, and achieve better outcomes, leading to better care and higher patient safety.

Over a three-year period, Northeastern University's program will train an estimated 81 workers in healthcare systems engineering methods and create an estimated 10 new jobs to educate students, oversee applied projects, and manage experiential education.

 

MOUNTAIN AREA HEALTH EDUCATION CENTER

Project Title: “Regional integrated multi-disciplinary approach to prevent and treat chronic pain in North Carolina”
Geographic Reach: North Carolina
Funding Amount: $1,186,045
Estimated 3-Year Savings: $2.4 million

Summary: The Mountain Area Health Education Center, serving 16 counties in Western North Carolina, is receiving an award to test team-based enhanced primary care for patients with chronic pain, whose treatment can be both costly and avoidably frequent. The target population for the test includes over 2,000 patients. The intervention will create multidisciplinary teams to provide enhanced primary care, using mid-level providers to co-manage care and providing counseling and medication management services. The result is expected to be better pain control, improved health, a reduction in the frequency of outpatient visits, and additional cost reductions arising from the use of mid-level providers with estimated savings of approximately $2.4 million. Over the three-year period, Mountain Area Health Education Center's program will train an estimated 390 health care workers and create an estimated 7.5 new jobs. These health workers will form multidisciplinary teams to provide enhanced primary care to patients with chronic pain in rural North Carolina.

 

NORTH CAROLINA COMMUNITY NETWORKS   

Project Title: “Building a statewide child health accountable care collaborative: the North Carolina strategy for improving health, improving quality, reducing costs, and enhancing the workforce”
Geographic Reach: North Carolina
Funding Amount: $9,343,670
Estimated 3-Year Savings: $24,089,682

Summary: North Carolina Community Care Networks, Inc., in partnership with the academic medical centers at Carolinas Medical Center-Charlotte, Duke University Health System, University of North Carolina Hospitals, Vidant Medical Center-East Carolina, and Wake Forest Baptist Health, as well as the children’s units at Cape Fear Valley Health, Cone Health, Mission Hospital, New Hanover Regional Medical Center, Presbyterian Healthcare, and WakeMed Hospitals, is receiving an award to form a Child Health Accountable Care Collaborative. This Collaborative will provide care coordination through embedded specialty care managers in the offices of specialists and through "parent navigators" who will work with patients in their homes. The program addresses the shortage of both pediatric primary care physicians and subspecialists, and will serve 50,000 Medicaid and CHIP children with chronic disease for whom care is costly and fragmented. The result will be reductions in avoidable emergency room visits, hospitalizations, and pharmacy costs, with improved access to care and better quality of life for the children served.

Over a three-year period, North Carolina Community Care Networks Inc. will train an estimated 42 workers and will create an estimated 44 jobs. The new workforce will include children's specialty care managers and parent navigators. Parent navigators are trained to aid families in navigating the complex medical services needed by their children.

 

THE NATIONAL HEALTH CARE FOR THE HOMELESS COUNCIL

Project Title: “Community health workers and HCH: a partnership to promote primary care”
Geographic Reach: California, Florida, Illinois, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Texas
Funding Amount: $2,681,877
Estimated 3-Year Savings: $1.5 million

Summary: The National Health Care for the Homeless Council is joining into a cooperative agreement to serve ten communities across various regions in the U.S. to reduce the number of emergency department visits and lack of primacy care services for over 1700 homeless individuals. The intervention will integrate community health workers into Federally Qualified Health Centers to conduct outreach and case coordination for transitioning this population from the emergency department to a health center, thus reducing unnecessary emergency department visits and improving quality of care for this population with estimated savings of approximately $1.4million. Over the three-year period, National Health Care for the Homeless Council’s program will train an estimated 101 health care workers, while creating an estimated 17 new jobs. The workers will include community health workers who will conduct outreach and care coordination.

 

UNIVERSITY OF NORTH TEXAS HEALTH SCIENCE CENTER     

Project Title: "Brookdale Senior Living (BSL) Transitions of Care Program"
Geographic Reach: Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin
Funding Amount: $7,329,714
Estimated 3-Year Savings: $9,729,702

Summary: The University of North Texas Health Science Center (UNTHSC), in partnership with Brookdale Senior Living (BSL), is receiving an award to expand and test the BSL Transitions of Care Program which is based on an evidenced-based assessment tool called Interventions to Reduce Acute Care Transfers (INTERACT) for residents living in independent living, assisted living and dementia specific facilities in Texas and Florida. In addition, community dwelling older adults who receive BSL home health services will be included in the Transitions of Care Program. Over the course of the award the program will expand to other states where BSL communities are located. The program will employ clinical nurse leaders (CNLs) to act as program managers. CNLs will train care transition nurses and other staff on the use of INTERACT and health information technology resources to help them identify, assess, and manage residents' clinical conditions to reduce preventable hospital admissions and readmissions. The goal of the program is to prevent the progress of disease, thereby reducing complications, improving care, and reducing the rate of avoidable hospital admissions for older adults.

Over a three-year period, the University of North Texas Health Science Center's program will train an estimated 10,926 workers and create an estimated 97 jobs for clinical nurse leaders and other health care team members.

 

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