HHS Ignite: Announcing the Teams of the Summer 2015 Accelerator
In March of this year, we asked HHS staff to submit project proposals for the Summer 2015 Ignite Accelerator. The HHS Ignite Accelerator is a competitive three-month internal innovation program run by the HHS IDEA lab that gives HHS staff-teams the opportunity to test innovative solutions to some of our most vexing operational and programmatic challenges. We announced the finalists in April, and now we're announcing the teams selected into the program. We announced the finalists to our fourth round of the program in April, and now we're announcing the teams selected into the program. These teams were selected from a pool of applicants that went through a two stage selection process.
The 11 Teams Selected for the Ignite Summer 2015 Accelerator
Brief information on the projects and the people behind them are below. (Click the titles to learn more about that effort.) To these individuals and teams we say: Congrats! And also: Good Luck! We looking forward to seeing what you learn along the way. Finding a way for Hospitals to Bill for Part D Drugs Helping hospitals and patients access the Medicare drug benefit to cover self-administered drugs. Project Lead: Ken Gardner, CMS (San Francisco) HHS Global Staffing Accelerator Developing a more efficient system for global recruitment. Project Lead: Matthew Brown, HHS/OGA The Human Trafficking Data Collection Project Working with partner agencies and organization to standardize information gathering so as to help end human trafficking. Project Lead: Latecia Engram, ACF Igniting Population Health Collaboratives Joining hospitals, public health, and community organizations to create collaborative community health plans. Project Lead: Dickie Lynn Gronseth, HHS OASH (Philadelphia) Improving Access and Demand for Research-tested Intervention Programs Helping researchers get their programs into practice to have an impact on public health. Project Lead: Cynthia Vinson, NIH/NCI Improving the NARMS Retail Meat Program Empowering state public health labs to provide better information about emerging bacterial resistance in retail meats. Project Lead: Emily Carey, FDA/CVM Real-Time Tracking System for Work Effort & Tasks Increasing efficiency and quality of the NIH grant review process. Project Lead: B. Duane Price, NIH/NIAID Tool for Enhancing Agency Knowledge Helping scientists find scientists. Project Lead: Vinay Pai, NIH/NIBIB Utilizing Available Funds to Benefit Nursing Home Residents Assisting nursing home stakeholders in accessing available funding to implement quality improvement projects. Project Lead: Anna Olson, CMS (Chicago) USVI: Dawn of a New Age Capacity building with the government of the U.S. Virgin Islands. Project Lead: Michelle Davis, HHS OASH (New York) vacciNATION Exploring how to best communicate vaccination information to parents. Project Lead: Rachel Hornstein, HHS/ASPE
The HHS Ignite Accelerator
Ignite is our competitive 3 month internal innovation accelerator that gives HHS staff-teams the opportunity to test innovative solutions to some of our most vexing challenges. Whether it's designing a new program, improving an existing process, or developing an innovative product, selected teams are focused on how to make their patch of government work better. The Summer 2015 Accelerator is the 4th Round of the Ignite program. Learn more about the HHS Ignite Accelerator here.
