18 Nov CMS sets up center for healthcare innovation

AuntMinnie.com | November 17 – The U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced on November 17 that it has formally established an innovation center to examine new ways of delivering healthcare that are designed to save money for CMS while improving the quality of care for its patients. Richard Gilfillan, MD, has been named its acting director.

Created by funding from the Affordable Care Act, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation will identify, support, and evaluate models of care that both improve the quality of care patients receive, as well as reduce costs, according to CMS administrator Donald Berwick, MD.

Berwick stated that the new innovation center will consult stakeholders across the U.S. healthcare sector to obtain direct input on its operations and to build partnerships with those interested in its work. CMS defined stakeholders as being interested individuals, physicians, other healthcare professionals, hospitals, state governments, employers, professional organizations and advocacy groups, and federal agencies.

The initial work of the center will focus on three areas, Berwick stated:

1. Improving care for patients in hospitals, clinics, physicians’ offices, and nursing homes, and developing ways to make care safer, more patient-centered, more efficient, more effective, more timely, and more equitable.
2. Developing new models that will make it easier for healthcare professionals to coordinate care for a patient to improve his/her health outcome.
3. Exploring steps to improve public health, particularly by fighting the epidemics of heart diseases, obesity, and smoking.

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