Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius today announced that Women & Infants Hospital of Rhode Island is among the first batch of organizations selected for Health Care Innovation awards. Made possible by the health care law – the Affordable Care Act – the awards will support 26 innovative projects nationwide that will save money, deliver high quality medical care, and enhance the health care workforce. The preliminary awardees announced today expect to reduce health spending by $254 million over the next three years.
"We can't wait to support innovative projects that will save money and make our health care system stronger, said Secretary Sebelius. "It's yet another way we are supporting local communities now in their efforts to provide better care and lower cost."
Women & Infants Hospital is receiving more than $3.2 million to expand the Transition Home Plus Program for approximately 2,400 mothers in Rhode Island over three years who have pre-term babies. Under the leadership of Betty Vohr, MD, medical director of the Neonatal Follow-Up Program in the Department of Pediatrics at Women & Infants Hospital and professor of pediatrics at The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, the intervention will train and deploy Family Care Teams to offer education and support and monitor infants' growth and development. It will also support primary care providers who help provide care for this at-risk population. The result will be reduced emergency room visits, fewer hospital readmissions, and decreased neonatal morbidity.
This approach will lower cost while improving health and health care for pre-term babies in Rhode Island with estimated savings of approximately $3.7 million. Over the three-year period, Women & Infants' program will train an estimated 120 health care workers, while creating an estimated 13 new jobs.
"I am deeply honored and thrilled," said Dr. Vohr. "This award will afford us the opportunity to expand our Transition Home Plus Program to care not only for extremely preterm babies, but also those babies who were moderate or late preterm and are therefore at risk for complications following discharge home. We have a wonderful team of caregivers who will provide services and support for these families."
Preliminary awardees were chosen not only for their innovative solutions to the health care challenges facing their communities, but also for their focus on creating a well-trained health care workforce that is equipped to meet the need for new jobs in the 21st century health system. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects the health care and social assistance sector will gain the most jobs between now and 2020.
Today's awards total $122.6 million. CMS's Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation is administering these awards through cooperative agreements over three years.
Earlier this year it was announced that Dr. Vohr, along with her Care New England colleague Nancy Roberts, president and chief executive officer of the VNA of Care New England, were selected to be part of the CMS Innovation Advisors Program. This initiative, launched by the CMS Innovation Center in October 2011, is helping health professionals deepen skills that will drive improvements to patient care and reduce costs.
About Women & Infants Hospital
Women & Infants Hospital of Rhode Island, a Care New England hospital, is one of the nation's leading specialty hospitals for women and newborns. A U.S.News Best Hospital in Gynecology and Best Children's Hospital in Neonatology, Women & Infants was ranked number one in the Providence metro area and a top-performer in cancer, and has achieved a 5-star rating in Maternity Care for 2011 from HealthGrades. The primary teaching affiliate of The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University for obstetrics, gynecology and newborn pediatrics, as well as a number of specialized programs in women's medicine, Women & Infants is the eighth largest stand-alone obstetrical service in the country with nearly 8,400 deliveries per year. In 2009, Women & Infants opened the country's largest, single-family room neonatal intensive care unit.
New England's premier hospital for women and newborns, Women & Infants and Brown offer fellowship programs in gynecologic oncology, maternal-fetal medicine, urogynecology and reconstructive pelvic surgery, neonatal-perinatal medicine, pediatric and perinatal pathology, gynecologic pathology and cytopathology, and reproductive endocrinology and infertility. It is home to the nation's only mother-baby perinatal psychiatric partial hospital, as well as the nation's only fellowship program in obstetric medicine.
Women & Infants has been designated as a Breast Center of Excellence from the American College of Radiography; a Center for In Vitro Maturation Excellence by SAGE In Vitro Fertilization; a Center of Biomedical Research Excellence by the National Institutes of Health; and a Neonatal Resource Services Center of Excellence. It is one of the largest and most prestigious research facilities in high risk and normal obstetrics, gynecology and newborn pediatrics in the nation, and is a member of the National Cancer Institute's Gynecologic Oncology Group and the National Institutes of Health's Pelvic Floor Disorders Network.