The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has announced the selection of 73 individuals from 27 states and Washington, D.C., for its Innovation Advisors Program.

The program will help healthcare professionals expand skills that will drive improvements to patient care and reduce costs. After a six-month orientation phase, Innovation Advisors will work with the CMS Innovation Center to test new models of care delivery in their own organizations and communities. They will also create partnerships to find effective new ideas and share those ideas regionally and nationally.

The 73 individuals, selected from 920 applications through a competitive process, include clinicians, allied health professionals, health administrators and others. The advisors will attend in-person meetings and remote sessions and apply what they learn about topics such as healthcare economics and finance, population health, systems analysis and operations research.

Among other duties, the advisors will be expected to support the Innovation Center in testing new models of care delivery, form partnerships with local organizations to drive delivery system reform, and improve their own health systems to help their communities achieve better health and better care at a lower cost.

Funding for the initiative came from the Affordable Care Act.

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The Innovation Advisors Program will select and develop as many as 200 individuals from across the nation in its first year. CMS anticipates reopening the application process this spring and selecting the remaining advisors by June. Applicants who were not selected for the first group do not have to reapply and will be automatically considered when applications are reopened.

Individuals who apply to be Innovation Advisors can be any professional employed by a public health or healthcare facility, institution or department. Candidates include, nurses, physicians, allied health professionals, instructors and non-clinicians (healthcare executives and practice managers) with experience in the healthcare field. Management experience will be viewed as an asset.

Advisors will not become employees of CMS or any other government office or agency. Each participating advisor's home organization will receive a stipend of up to $20,000 in conjunction with their participation. The advisors are expected to commit up to 10 hours per week during an initial six-month period, with similar involvement thereafter depending on an individual's proposed work plan.

For more information and a list of the 73 Innovation Advisors, visit http://go.cms.gov/vFu2b9.