Major grant to transform region’s clinical practices
Vanderbilt University has received a contract from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) for up to $28 million over four years to help more than 4,000 clinicians in the Southeast transform their clinical practices in ways that improve quality of patient care and hold down costs.
The contract is part of the Transforming Clinical Practice Initiative, which aims to help 140,000 clinician practices across the country develop comprehensive quality improvement strategies.
The Vanderbilt contract supports a partnership between Vanderbilt, the Vanderbilt Health Affiliated Network (VHAN) and the Safety Net Consortium of Middle Tennessee.
Called the Mid-South Practice Transformation Network (PTN), it will support quality improvement efforts that include reducing unnecessary testing, emergency room visits and hospitalizations, and will save millions of dollars.
“Participating in this initiative is a tremendous opportunity to improve quality of care for patients, families and our local population,” said Russell Rothman, M.D., MPP, principal investigator of the Mid-South PTN and assistant vice chancellor for Population Health Research at Vanderbilt.
VHAN is a physician-led population health resource organization with the goal of improving the health of communities in Tennessee and beyond by sharing expertise, resources and an effective framework across clinicians, hospitals and health systems. The network includes more than 3,400 physicians, 225 practices and 30 hospitals.
The Safety Net Consortium of Middle TN supports safety net hospitals, community health centers and about 250 clinicians serving 100,000 patients in medically underserved communities.