An unexpected change to the scoring methodology for project plans was the final influencer in the Board’s decision. HCA announced Friday October 27, that ACHs who take on four projects would now be eligible to earn 100% of their allotted funds. In the original scoring, ACHs took a penalty up front for not selecting more than 4 projects. HCA made this change in response to the recent cut in Up to Transformation project funding, to allow ACHs to choose a more focused approach now that we will be operating with potentially 30% fewer dollars.
Choosing four projects made sense to us for a lot of the same reasons choosing six did. Our region feels a commitment to all eight project areas, which represent valuable strategies for achieving improved community health. Not to mention, elements of all these projects areas are so interconnected, that strategic implementation planning can address multiple areas at once. However, choosing a project commits the entire region to addressing those metrics, which is a big risk in some areas. Projects will be asking some providers to make big changes, and more project reporting will be a bigger burden. We are choosing to not select Transitions or Diversion Intervention, Oral Health, and Reproductive, Maternal and Child health. However, we will direct our Collaborative planning teams to look for opportunities to weave in strategies from the above projects to the project areas we are selecting.
- Bi-Directional Integration of Care
- Care Coordination
- Opioid Response
- Chronic Disease Management.
After all, once we earn the dollars in these areas, we can spend them however we want. This will allow us greater capacity to focus on success in our projects, and more flexibility to weave in complementary strategies as they best support the region.
