Today the Milbank Memorial Fund and AcademyHealth announced three finalists for the inaugural State and Local Innovation Prize, recognizing state and local efforts to improve the health of populations and the performance of health systems.
“States and localities are traditionally at the forefront of innovations in health policy and program implementation,” said Christopher Koller, president of the Milbank Memorial Fund. “This new prize is an opportunity to celebrate and document state and local innovations that are driven by new data and analytics, and powered by community partnerships. We can learn from these innovations and help spread them.”
The finalists’ projects include efforts aimed at innovative care coordination for Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries, a proactive approach to lead paint exposure and poisoning in children and improving continuity of care for county jail inmates. A winner will be chosen from the following three finalists:
- Chatham County Georgia’s Project to Leverage Regional HIEs for Continuity of Care for County Jail Inmates
Chatham County Safety Net Planning Council, Inc. / ChathamHealthLink, Chatham County, Chatham County Sheriff’s Department, Curtis V. Cooper Primary Health Care, Inc., and the Georgia Regional Academic Community Health Information Exchange worked together to close the medical information gap and improve patient safety and health outcomes for those within the county’s jail and those transitioning back into the county’s population.
- Chicago’s Childhood Lead Paint Data Sharing Project
The Chicago Department of Public Health and Department of Innovation and Technology partnered with the University of Chicago Center for Data Science and Public Policy to develop a more proactive approach to lead paint exposure and poisoning in children. They created a predictive model that combines data from multiple sectors to identify at-risk children for blood testing or homes for lead inspections. The project also developed a shared platform with pediatric providers that recommends specific actions based on lead-poisoning risk.
- Washington State’s Integrating Medicaid and Medicare Data Using the Predictive Risk Intelligence System (PRISM)
The Washington State Department of Health and Human Services, Washington State Health Care Authority, and the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services partnered to integrate state Medicaid and federal Medicare data for predictive modeling that targets innovative care coordination and social service interventions. The system also supports care coordinators in the development of person-centered health action plans.
A panel of experts reviewed more than 40 applications. They looked for projects that demonstrated innovation in overcoming traditional public sector barriers and challenges to leveraging data for policy and programs, measurable impact on specific metrics of population health, sustainability of effort and likely future impact on policy and programs, and potential to scale and/or replicate.
“Drawing on new data – or using existing data in new ways – to drive improvements in health and health care is central to the Health Datapalooza event,” said Lisa Simpson, President and CEO of AcademyHealth. “This is the perfect venue to recognize the innovations that the teams from Chatham County, Chicago and Washington State have created and deployed.”
The winner of the award will be announced on the mainstage of the 2018 Health Datapalooza on April 26.
About the Milbank Memorial Fund
The Milbank Memorial Fund is an endowed operating foundation that works to improve the health of populations by connecting leaders and decision makers with the best available evidence and experience. Founded in 1905, the Fund engages in nonpartisan analysis, collaboration, and communication on significant issues in health policy. It does this work by publishing high-quality, evidence-based reports, books, and The Milbank Quarterly, a peer-reviewed journal of population health and health policy; convening state health policy decision makers on issues they identify as important to population health; and building communities of health policymakers to enhance their effectiveness.