In the last few weeks, the head of CMS has written a WSJ op ed calling for a reboot of the CMS Innovation Center (here). And the new head of AHRQ has promised a vision for a new "AHRQ 2.0" - here.
Here's another approach to innovation at HHS. See a set of 14 innovation programs approved by HHS for the coming year. This is an initiative of the HHS IDEA Lab (here). The IDEA Lab fielded 79 proposes from across HHS - CDC, NIH, FDA, CMS, etc. The proposals were rigorously reviewed and scored, and 14 were chosen.
See the list of proposals here. One directly involves CMS, and happens to be in the laboratory field, headed by Katherine Szarama PhD of the Coverage Group, Eunice Lee of FDA, Brandi Kattman, NIH. The project promises to reduce wait time between NIH, FDA, and CMS decision points (see full abstract at link).
Another CMS project looks at the issue of hospital readmissions in sickle cell disease.
