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Welcoming the Newest Teams to the Spring 2017 Ignite Accelerator

January 5, 2017
By: Will Yang, Consultant, Office of Business Management and Transformation, HHS
Summary: 
What if your ideas had the potential to transform how HHS delivers on its mission? What if you had the support and guidance to explore and test that idea? During the Fall of 2016, we posed these questions to employees at the Department of Health and Human Services and solicited proposals for the HHS Ignite Accelerator Program, our 3-month internal innovation startup program for staff within the Department that want to improve the way their program, office, or agency works.

What if your ideas had the potential to transform how HHS delivers on its mission? What if you had the support and guidance to explore and test that idea?

During the Fall of 2016, we posed these questions to employees at the Department of Health and Human Services and solicited proposals for the HHS Ignite Accelerator Program, our 3-month internal innovation startup program for staff within the Department that want to improve the way their program, office, or agency works.

We received a record 108 applications. We thank those that boldly applied to Ignite. This was the most competitive selection process yet, due to the sheer number and quality of proposals.

Today, after careful selection, we are delighted to announce the 13 teams invited to join the Spring 2017 Ignite Accelerator:

  • Building Communities of Practice to Unify OA Processes and Communications. Led by Lila Lee at ACF.
  • Enabling the CMS Physician Engagement and Burden Reduction Initiative through Improved Data Systems. Led by Jon Langmead at CMS.
  • Learning from Past Actions through Sentinel Event Review. Led by Cara Altimus at FDA.
  • Unique Device Identifier App. Led by Heather Valadez at FDA.
  • Improving Health Outcomes by Increasing Coordination of HHS' Investments in Training & Technical Assistance (TTA) for Health and Human Service Organizations. Led by Robert McKenna at HRSA.
  • Convert Audiology Services to Paperless. Led by Jennifer Imboden at IHS.
  • A Virtual Partnering Platform to Advance NIH-funded Biomedical Technologies to the Marketplace. Led by Gary Robinson at NIH.
  • NLP-based Portfolio Analysis. Led by Bishen Singh at NIH.
  • Your Healthiest Self: NIH Research for Living Well. Led by Tianna Hicklin at NIH.
  • Enhancing Scientific Peer Review Using an Integrated Electronic Approach. Led by J. Bruce Sundstrom at NIH.
  • Bridge DC. Led by Joel Adu-Brimpong at NIH.
  • Community Opioid Consultation Toolkit. Led by Chad Edinger at OS.
  • Pilot for Establishing Infrastructure for Publicly Released Research Data. Led by Daniel Janes at OS.

Over the course of three months, teams will hypothesize, formulate problem statements, and scope solution-sets to turn their ideas into minimally viable products.

For those unfamiliar with the program, the Ignite Accelerator Program will teach selected teams entrepreneurial methodologies, provide access to a new network of fellow innovators, provide coaching from mentors, and ultimately push participants slightly out of their comfort zone as they explore problems and transform their ideas into solutions. And starting in January, the selected teams will be attending a Boot Camp to kick-start their 3 month journey.

Stay tuned, and please join me in congratulating these teams!

Posted In: 
Health IT
Tagged: News and Events