Increasing Coordination of Training & Technical Assistance across HHS

Executive Summary

Training and technical assistance (TTA) grant programs for health and human service professionals are administered by various Operating Divisions at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). In many instances, these grants share a focus on geography (national, multi-state, statewide, or local), participants (settings, such as health centers, or providers, such as nurses) and topics (service integration, standards of care). Yet, the TTA programs are not systematically coordinated. This causes several problems: 1) HHS is unable to best leverage resources. 2) Provider organizations experience the burden of responding to numerous requests (for information about needs) from multiple TTA grantee programs, as well as limited to requesting and receiving assistance from only grantees known to them; and 3) Grantees, as well as HHS staff administering grant programs, are unable to identify TTA resources possessed by others before duplicating efforts. These gaps limit impact on services, which in turn limits health outcomes of those served.

This team seeks to develop a system that: 1) Allows service organizations to search TTA resources and request TTA services; 2) Facilitates communication about TTA requests, as well as TTA outcomes, among TTA grantees; 3) Documents TTA grantee responses to requests; 4) Permits TTA grantees to identify and exchange materials and resources; and 5) Assists HHS staff with communicating about and tracking TTA performance.

A project supported by the: HHS Ignite Accelerator

Team Members

Robert McKenna (Project Lead), HRSA
Aleisha Langhorne, HRSA
Nina Tumosa, HRSA

Milestones

January 2017: Project selected into the HHS Ignite Accelerator
February 2017: Time in the Accelerator began