Are you innovative? Do you influence the care patients receive in a health system through quality initiatives? You’re invited!

A new initiative announced by the CMS Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation is accepting applications for the Innovation Advisors Program from providers in health systems and any professional employed by a public health or health care facility, institution, or department.

The idea is to engage folks to refine, apply, and sustain the managerial and technical skills necessary to drive delivery system reform. Medicare, Medicaid, and Children’s Health Insurance Program beneficiaries want your help. The program will allow skilled individuals in the health care system to deepen key skill sets, including health care economics and finance, population health, systems analysis, and operations research.

The selection criteria for applicants include career achievements; their pre-existing skill set and its relevance to transforming the health care system for these beneficiaries; the quality of a proposed innovation project in their home organization; their organization’s explicit commitment to their work; and management experience.

As many as 200 Innovation Advisors around the country will be selected and developed in the program’s first year, and their home organization or group will be eligible to receive a stipend of up to $20,000 to support their activities, including travel.

The first group of Innovation Advisors will start a 6-month intensive orientation and applied research period in December 2011. During the initial 6-month period, advisors will commit up to 10 hours per week, with similar or less involvement thereafter. They’ll meet together at the regional level each quarter and at CMS in Baltimore once each year. Advisors will not be employees of CMS or the government.

The deadline to apply is November 15. Innovation Advisors will be notified of their selection by mid-December 2011.

It’s critically important that pharmacists from a variety of practice settings apply for this program. APhA encourages pharmacists to participate. Please let us know at iqi@aphanet.org if you intend to submit an application!