HRSA is Running their Own Internal Accelerator Pilot
The #HackRedTape movement to make the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) stronger through innovation is growing. The Health Resources & Services Administration (HRSA) is now piloting their own internal innovation accelerator model at the Agency-level. This represents a small but crucial piece in the puzzle that is innovation at HHS and the Federal government. But before we dive into details about the HRSA Idea Spring, here's a little background on how we got to this wonderful milestone.
A Brief History of Our Federal Innovation Efforts
Over the last two or so years since the IDEA Lab was founded, we have been iterating and refining our own internal innovation pipeline.
Along the way, we have been helping and exchanging insights with offices across the federal government who are starting their internal innovation pipelines. Outside of HHS, the folks that we've advised and that have been able to launch include: 18F and the Veteran's Administration's Center for Innovation. Within HHS, there have been office-level innovation enterprises within parts of the FDA and NIH. And we're aware of others taking the model and adapting. This is great! We strive to over-communicate all aspects of the program so that people can pick it up.
The HRSA Idea Spring
Now, we're excited to play a more deliberate role in developing an internal innovation program within our HHS family. HRSA Idea Spring is a 2 ½ month program with the goal of facilitating problem exploration and prototype development. Methodologically-speaking, this is the Alpha stage of a project, devoted to Project Discovery. Here's how the HRSA Idea Spring fits together with the IDEA Lab Internal Innovation Pipeline:
As for our role, we will be advisors to the teams selected into the Idea Spring, having regular check-ins and sharing lessons learned. We'll also be running their Boot Camp - where they will learn how to identify their customers and explore their project idea in depth. But beyond this small support framework - and we want to be sure this is clear - this is wholly a HRSA effort. We are very excited that Acting Administrator Jim McCrae has supported this effort and the talented team behind this pilot, who are:
- Candace Webb
- Desha Anderson
- Erica Grover
- Katrina Jones
- Lenni Green
- Terri Richards
So this upcoming Round, HRSA teams can apply to either the the HHS Ignite Accelerator (due Nov 6!) or the HRSA Idea Spring (due Dec 1!). Much like how the HHS Ignite Accelerator started, the HRSA Idea Spring is a pilot - otherwise known as an experiment. If great things happen, perhaps other HHS agencies will join? We'll have to see. The focus right now is on simply ensuring a proper experiment takes place. Stay tuned as we hope to continue communicating out on these efforts.
