HHS Awards $2.5 Million to Promote Innovative State Approaches to Expand and Improve Health Care and Social Services

HHS Secretary Tommy G. Thompson today announced $2.5 million in grants to support state and local efforts to implement and develop new and creative approaches to providing health care and social services.

Arkansas, Colorado, Massachusetts, South Dakota, and the District of Columbia will each receive grants to implement specific demonstrations that would use innovative ways to provide health care and social services. HHS also awarded 10 smaller planning grants to help state and local officials flesh out innovative ideas.

“These grants reward states for thinking outside the box and finding new ways to help their residents get the health care and other services that they need,” Secretary Thompson said.  “As a former governor, I know that states are uniquely positioned to develop innovations to needed services more effectively, efficiently and compassionately. These grants will help those new ideas to take root and flourish and improve the lives of many Americans.”

Secretary Thompson established the “State Innovation Grants” program to spur states to find new ways to improve access to health care, to reduce levels of poverty or to tackle other important projects to better the lives of their residents. HHS awarded the grants competitively to states that proposed to design and implement demonstrations using new models for delivering health care, long-term care, and/or human services to low-income adults, families and children.

“This innovative new program encourages states to be creative in the way they deliver their health care and social services programs,” said Bobby Jindal, Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation. “We look forward to learning from these projects, helping states develop best practices and sharing the lessons learned with other states.”

HHS awarded grants for the following five demonstration projects:

1. Arkansas, $410,557. This project will provide some Medicaid beneficiaries who live in nursing homes an option to receive a cash allowance, which they could use to obtain the equipment and support services that they need to live at home. It builds on a similar consumer-directed services demonstration available to some Arkansas Medicaid beneficiaries.
2. Colorado, $500,000. This project, called KID CONNECTS, will support an integrated approach to improve behavioral health at early childhood centers in Boulder and Denver Counties. The demonstration will promote screening procedures that will help professionals identify young children with developmental delays and behavior issues.
3. Massachusetts, $487,827. The state will use the grant to support services for fathers under the Massachusetts Teen Living Program Network, which already provides a safe, supportive environment for homeless young women and their children. The grant will support efforts to help fathers obtain education, job training and employment services, and to teach parenting and life skills.
4. South Dakota, $99,000. This project will help to enhance support services for families caring for a child or other family member with a developmental disability who is under age 22 and living in the home. This project also will expand the availability of these services to families who have older children living in more rural areas of South Dakota.
5. District of Columbia, $450,000. This grant will support the creation of two state-of the-art dental clinics at schools serving children with special health care needs. The centers will use telemedicine tools to link patients with pediatric dentists and hygienists, expanding access to dental care. They also will conduct outreach, education and home-based monitoring for parents and caregivers of children with special health care needs with dental problems.

In addition, HHS awarded planning grants as follows: Alaska ($50,000), Arizona ($45,680), Arkansas ($50,000), Delaware ($45,000), Iowa ($49,500), Kansas ($46,356), Maryland ($50,000), New Hampshire ($50,000), South Carolina ($53,808), and District of Columbia ($45,000).

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