Appendix C
Background Questions and Panelist Responses
Panelists were asked to provide the roundtable with written responses to the following questions prior to the workshop. The responses provided by the panelists for each case example follow.
Rashad Massoud, Director, U.S. Agency for
International Development (USAID) Applying
Science to Strengthen and Improve Systems

The USAID Applying Science to Strengthen and Improve Systems (ASSIST) Project is funded by the American people through USAID’s Bureau for Global Health, Office of Health Systems. The project is managed by University Research Co., LLC (URC) under the terms of Cooperative Agreement Number AID-OAA-A-12-00101. URC’s global partners for USAID ASSIST include: EnCompass LLC; FHI 360; Harvard University School of Public Health; HEALTHQUAL International; Institute for Healthcare Improvement; Initiatives Inc.; Johns Hopkins University Center for Communication Programs; WI-HER LLC; and the World Health Organization Service Delivery and Safety Department. For more information on the work of the USAID ASSIST Project, please visit www.usaidassist.org.
What are we improving at what scale?

USAID Applying Science to Strengthen and Improve Systems University Research Co., LLC, 7200 Wisconsin Ave., Bethesda, MD 20814-4811 USA TEL 301-654-8338 • FAX 301-941-8427 • www.usaidassist.org • assist-info@urc-chs.com
Steve Kelder, Co-Director, Coordinated Approach to Child Health (CATCH)
I’ve been working on CATCH since 1992, as a professor interested in development and evaluation of child health promotion programs. As a professor, the dissemination of CATCH is one of many professional obligations and has not been my full-time job, and funding is inconsistent year to year. To solve some of the problems described above, in 2014 several CATCH investigators started the CATCH Global Foundation, a 501(c)(3) public charity. The mission is to improve children’s health worldwide by developing, disseminating, and sustaining the CATCH platform in collaboration with researchers at University of Texas (UT) Health. The foundation links underserved schools and communities to the resources necessary to create and sustain healthy change for future generations.
John Elder, to name a few. My colleague Deanna Hoelscher and I have been at this for a long time.
Darshak Sanghavi, Director, Population and Preventive Health Models Group at the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation (CMMI)
Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation: Background
CMMI was established by section 1115A of the Social Security Act (as added by section 3021 of the Affordable Care Act). Congress created the innovation center for the purpose of testing “innovative payment and service delivery models to reduce program expenditures … while preserving or enhancing the quality of care” for those individuals who receive Medicare, Medicaid, or Children’s Health Insurance Program benefits.
Congress provided the Secretary of Health and Human Services with the authority to expand the scope and duration of a model being tested through rule making, including the option of testing on a nationwide basis. In order for the secretary to exercise this authority, a model must demonstrate either reduced spending without reducing the quality of care or improved quality of care without increasing spending, and it must not deny or limit the coverage or provision of any benefits. These determinations are made based on evaluations performed by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and the certification of CMS’s chief actuary with respect to spending.
Established in 2010 and composed of roughly 300 staff members, the center is funded by a $10 billion appropriation over 10 years. Broadly, the center is currently testing models related to accountable care organizations (ACOs) (the Pioneer ACO model), comprehensive primary care, bundled payments for care improvement, state-based innovation models focused on Medicaid, numerous health care innovation awards, and broad based system transformation (e.g., the Partnership for Patients).
Spread and Scale of the Innovation
Annual federal spending by Medicare and Medicaid is approximately $772 billion, and the programs consume 22 percent of the federal budget, covering about 54 million Americans with Medicare and 70 million people via Medicaid. As a result, federal policy in these programs has the potential to drive significant impact through their scale. As of 2013, more than 50,000 providers were engaged by CMMI models, which served more than 1 million Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries. Typical models can range from 3 to 5 years in duration, though there are several examples of Medicare demonstration projects that have continued for extended periods of time.
The spread and scale of models is typically supported by evaluation, learn/diffusion strategies, and public accountability for results of pilot programs, which are released publicly.
TABLE C-1 Current Model Authorized by the Affordable Care Act (taken from Report to Congress at end of 2012)
| Initiative Name | Description | Statutory Authority | ||
| Accelerated Learning Development Sessions | A series of collaborative learning sessions with stakeholders across the country to inform the design of the accountable care organization initiatives | Section 1115A of the Social Security Act (section 3021 of the Affordable Care Act) | ||
| Advance Payment ACO Model | Prepayment of expected shared savings to support ACO infrastructure and care coordination | Section 1115A of the Social Security Act (section 3021 of the Affordable Care Act) | ||
| Bundled Payment for Care Improvement | Evaluate four different models of bundled payments for a defined episode of care to incentivize care redesign Model 1: Retrospective Acute Care Hospital Inpatient Stay Model 2: Retrospective Acute Care Hospital Inpatient Stay & Post-Acute Care Model 3: Retrospective Post-Acute Care Model 4: Prospective Acute Care Hospital Inpatient Stay | Section 1115A of the Social Security Act (section 3021 of the Affordable Care Act) | ||
| Comprehensive Primary Care Initiative | Public–private partnership to enhance primary care services, including 24-hour access, creation of care management plans, and care coordination | Section 1115A of the Social Security Act (section 3021 of the Affordable Care Act) | ||
| Federally Qualified Health Center Advanced Primary Care Practice—Demonstration Financial Alignment Initiative Health Care Innovation Awards | Care coordination payments to FQHCs in support of team-led care, improved access, and enhanced primary care services Opportunity for states to implement new integrated care and payment systems to better coordinate care for Medicare/Medicaid enrollees A broad appeal for innovations with a focus on developing the health care workforce for new care models | Section 1115A of the Social Security Act (section 3021 of the Affordable Care Act) Section 1115A of the Social Security Act (section 3021 of the Affordable Care Act) Section 1115A of the Social Security Act (section 3021 of the Affordable Care Act) | ||
| Initiative Name | Description | Statutory Authority | ||
| Initiative to Reduce Preventable Hospitalization Among Nursing Facility Residents | Initiative to improve quality of care and reduce avoidable hospitalizations among long-stay nursing facility residents by partnering with independent organizations with nursing facilities to test enhanced on-site services and supports to reduce inpatient hospitalizations | Section 1115A of the Social Security Act (section 3021 of the Affordable Care Act) | ||
| Innovation Advisors | This initiative is not a payment and service delivery model for purposes of section 1115A, but rather is an initiative that is part of the infrastructure of the Innovation Center to engage individuals to test and support models of payment and care delivery to improve quality and reduce cost through continuous improvement processes | Section 1115A of the Social Security Act (section 3021 of the Affordable Care Act) | ||
| Million Hearts | This initiative is not a payment and service delivery model for purposes of section 1115A, but rather is an initiative that is part of the infrastructure of the Innovation Center. Million Hearts is a national initiative to prevent 1 million heart attacks and strokes over 5 years; brings together communities, health systems, nonprofit organizations, federal agencies, and private-sector partners from across the country to fight heart disease and stroke. | Section 1115A of the Social Security Act (section 3021 of the Affordable Care Act) | ||
| Partnership for Patients | Hospital engagement networks (and other interventions) in reducing HACs/readmissions by 20 and 40 percent, respectively. (Community-Based Care Transition is covered in another row.) | Section 1115A of the Social Security Act (section 3021 of the Affordable Care Act) | ||
| Pioneer ACO Model | Experienced provider organizations taking on financial risk for improving quality and lowering costs for all of their Medicare patients | Section 1115A of the Social Security Act (section 3021 of the Affordable Care Act) | ||
| Initiative Name | Description | Statutory Authority | ||
| State Demonstrations to Integrate Care for Medicare-Medicaid Enrollees | Support states in designing integrated care programs for Medicare/Medicaid enrollees | Section 1115A of the Social Security Act (section 3021 of the Affordable Care Act) | ||
| State Innovation Models | Provides financial, technical, and other support to states that are either prepared to test, or are committed to designing and testing new payment and service delivery models that have the potential to reduce health care costs in Medicare, Medicaid, and CHIP | Section 1115A of the Social Security Act (section 3021 of the Affordable Care Act) | ||
| Strong Start for Mothers and Newborns | Strategy I: Testing the effectiveness of shared learning and diffusion activities to reduce the rate of early elective deliveries among pregnant women Strategy II: Testing and evaluating a new model of enhanced prenatal care to reduce preterm births (less than 37 weeks) in women covered by Medicaid | Section 1115A of the Social Security Act (section 3021 of the Affordable Care Act) | ||
NOTES: This table summarizes the current model tests authorized by Section 1115A of the Social Security Act. ACO = accountable care organization; CHIP = Children’s Health Insurance Program; FQHC = federally qualified health center; HAC = hospital-acquired condition.
Linda Kaufman, National Movement Manager, Community Solutions’ 100,000 Homes Campaign and Zero: 2016
Community Solutions is working on a real-time, data-driven approach to ending homelessness, and it is especially focused on those individuals who are in the most acute need and have been homeless the longest. We view homelessness in America as a public health emergency, as the mortality rate for street homelessness is on par with some forms of cancer, cutting a person’s lifespan by an average of 25 years.
By using learnings from the collective impact and lean start-up models, Community Solutions has quickly spread the work of ending chronic homelessness across the United States by scaling up best practices and embracing targeted, data-driven solutions.
We began with a prototype called Housing First, which provides people experiencing homelessness with housing as quickly as possible and without preconditions, and then provides services to these people as needed. Although developed more than 20 years ago, the Housing First model had not spread far beyond Pathways to Housing, Inc., the developer of the concept. This simple concept has revolutionized the work of ending homelessness.
We then piloted a method of organizing housing services within a community, using the Housing First model to prioritize people based on vulnerability and moving those with the greatest need into housing as quickly as possible. This pilot started in Times Square in New York City and quickly spread to five other vanguard communities across the country (Albuquerque, Charlotte, Denver, the District of Columbia, and Skid Row in Los Angeles). This pilot phase allowed us to develop the right tools and process to house chronically homeless individuals and was pushed forward by the success of these communities.
In July 2010 the national 100,000 Homes Campaign was launched with the help and support of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI). Joe McCannon (also a speaker at this forum) was our consultant, guru, and facilitator of many meetings. By learning from IHI’s 100,000 Lives Campaign, we set our sights on an audacious goal—to permanently house 100,000 of our most vulnerable and chronically homeless neighbors and transform the way our communities respond to homelessness. The launch of the campaign allowed us to intentionally target the communities with more than 1,000 chronically (i.e., long-term) homeless individuals.
The spread of this work began in 2010, as we spread the idea to more than 180 communities that went on to house more than 105,000 chronically homeless individuals by July 2014. We made significant changes over the 4 years of the campaign, adopting new techniques and scaling up best practices, and we have seen significant returns on our investments. An independent researcher estimates that each year the system saves
$1.3 billion by moving these 100,000 people from the streets to permanent housing.
By the latter part of the campaign, the spread of these ideas and systematic changes began to reach the scale we had hoped to see. By employing a boot camp model (6 to 10 communities gathered in one place for large-scale change), we were able to go far beyond our previous single-community methodology. The boot camps were first used to introduce communities to prioritization and Housing First, and subsequently they were used to dramatically increase housing placements and system redesign.
Following the successful completion of the 100,000 Homes Campaign, Community Solutions launched a new initiative, Zero: 2016. This rigorous and challenging follow-on to the 100,000 Homes Campaign includes a cohort of 71 communities (including 4 states), which have committed to ending veteran homelessness by the end of 2015 and to ending chronic/long-term homelessness by the end of 2016.
We have moved from working with one community at a time to multiple communities simultaneously. We have moved from simply asking communities to know each person by name to using triage rather than chronology to determine their next housing placement. We have moved from “Set your own goal and see if you can meet that goal” to an objective goal—that 2.5 percent of a community’s chronically homeless population should be housed each month. And now communities have committed to doing the impossible: taking veteran homelessness to functional zero by December 31, 2015, and chronic homelessness to functional zero by December 31, 2016.
Disrupting the failed status quo of “managing” homelessness rather than ending homelessness requires systemic change. That is why we required that all communities applying to be part of Zero: 2016 obtain buy-in from key stakeholders and have a signed memorandum of action in place. Communities had to publicly commit to the goals of Zero: 2016 as well as to a number of community actions aimed at helping reach these goals.
The success of Zero: 2016 is based on the learnings from the prototype and pilot phase, but it is not confined to them. The success of this initiative is based on a constantly iterating process: Data from communities are used to plan and drive subsequent steps, and best practices are identified and adopted. For example, in the 100,000 Homes Campaign, communities were lauded and celebrated for meeting their goals and reporting their monthly housing placements; this had never before been viewed as a useful exercise. Now Zero: 2016 communities recognize that meeting goals and reporting not only are required to participate in the initiative, but also are necessary to reach zero within their communities.
Before the beginning of the 100,000 Homes Campaign and Opening Doors (the federal campaign to end homelessness), we had seen very little success in the reduction of homelessness. Since the federal campaign, supported by the 100,000 Homes campaign, we have seen a 33 percent reduction in the number of homeless veterans and a 20 percent reduction in chronic homelessness. This reduction has been a direct result of a national turn toward the use of evidence-based practices, a reliance on what the data show us, and the amazing federal–private collaborations that have been established along the way. By working with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, we have developed strategic partnerships that have supported our work and impelled us toward meeting the goals of ending veteran and chronic homelessness.
Ogonnaya Dotson-Newman, Director of Environmental Health, West Harlem Environmental Action, Inc. (WE ACT) for Environmental Justice
Many of the examples that were given have been created, adopted, and modified on a community-by-community basis by environmental justice organizations. For example, the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences had a number of programs in the late 1990s and early 2000s that provided a framework for academic institutions working with community-based organizations. The funding and capacity-building initiatives lead to techniques to improve citizen science and a framework for using science as an organizing tool. Many of the ideas for this framework were tested locally with hundreds of organizations. The wins that you see in cities across the country and even the world are based on programs, policies, and practices developed individually and in collaboration. Some of these examples even build historically on work done and catalogued by movement historians.
10 years for the right leaders to be in office at the federal level. The work related to the adoption of policies and practices by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority took more than 15 years. The coalition work and individual organizing around climate justice and climate change issues has taken more than 7 years just in terms of engagement of residents in Northern Manhattan, although the broader coalition and idea spread has been going on for even longer.
Dan Herman, Professor and Associate Dean, Silberman School of Social Work, Hunter College
The goal right now is to continue broad dissemination in multiple systems. No numerical goal has been identified.
Cheryl Healton, Dean, New York University, Global Institute of Public Health
Reducing smoking initiation and helping people quit.
Encouraging states to adopt; encouraging media networks to subsidize, as they do anti-drug messages; encouraging other public education efforts, and collaborating with them.
EX relies mainly on the theory of reasoned action and efficacy theories of health behavior change.
Brian King, Senior Scientist, Office of Smoking and Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
eral campaigns (e.g., Tips from Former Smokers); all 50 states have a tobacco quitline, but the services rendered (e.g., free nicotine patches) vary across states.
the social-ecological model. The development of workplace tobacco control interventions may be informed by a single model or theoretical framework, or it may encompass more than one.
the impact. Therefore, organizational changes to fully implement and sustain comprehensive tobacco control programs at CDC-recommended levels are critical to make the organizational changes required to effectively achieve Healthy People 2020 goals.
Jeannette Noltenius, member of the National Latino Alliance for Health Equity, the National Latino Tobacco Control Network, and the Phoenix Equity Group, but statement is my own.
for each group; it is about different actors, messages, and messengers. It means integrating leadership so as to represent the changing demographics and perspectives, equitably distributing resources, and changing the focus of population-based approaches to reach those left behind.
by minorities and vulnerable youth have not been regulated or taxed appropriately. E-cigarettes, hookah, and smokeless products are invading the market. More than 98 percent of MSA funds and most of the cigarette taxes have not been used for tobacco control. We failed to make an impact on politicians as to why progress is stalled, and industry tactics have adjusted by marketing multiple products.
Minority leaders writing in minority news outlets or appearing on television create local echo effects that impel local politicians to act responsibly and support systemic policy changes.
Sally Herndon, Director, North Carolina Tobacco Prevention and Control Branch (TPCB)
properties. More than half (35 of 58) of North Carolina community colleges are 100 percent tobacco free.
Health and Wellness Trust Fund with Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement funds to focus primarily on teen tobacco use prevention and cessation. The North Carolina Health and Wellness Trust Fund budgeted between $6.2 million and $18 million per year before they were abolished by the North Carolina General Assembly in 2011.
100 percent tobacco-free policy, and hospitals followed suit in a similar manner with help from North Carolina Prevention Partners and a Duke Endowment grant. All state-operated mental health, developmental disabilities, and substance abuse treatment facilities became 100 percent tobacco free campus-wide in 2014, and these facilities are actively integrating tobacco cessation into treatment, where just a few years ago cigarette use was tolerated, if not encouraged, as patients worked on alcohol and other drug abuse problems.
When the house majority leader (a lung cancer survivor) began to build support for a law banning smoking in restaurants and bars, the North Carolina Restaurant and Lodging Association promoted a level playing field for businesses. Skilled state and local public health partners worked closely with skilled outside-government advocates from the North Carolina Alliance for Health and the North Carolina Association of Local Health Directors to educate the public and decision makers. After 3 years of education and building support, a strong bipartisan law was passed making all North Carolina restaurants and bars smoke free as of January 2, 2010. TPCB worked with local health directors to implement this law with fidelity across 100 counties. TPCB evaluated the impact using the CDC Evaluation Toolkit and disseminated the positive evaluation results routinely and widely. The evaluation results include the following: (1) 89 percent improvement in air quality, (2) 21 percent decline in weekly emergency department visits for heart attacks statewide the year the law went into effect, and (3) a voter approval rating of 83 percent. The CDC Foundation funds were invested through the Hospitality Project in tools to make the transition to smoke free easier for North Carolina restaurants and bars, including a video of three restaurant/bar owners talking about their positive experience of going smoke free in North Carolina and an economic analysis that showed no negative effect on business or jobs from the law’s implementation. Promotional ads and bar coasters emphasized the benefits of quitting and help and support for tobacco users who want to quit through QuitlineNC.
Resources include funding as well as people resources that can expand support for a policy or program through social capital. Funding for tobacco control has been available (through tobacco taxes and Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement funds) but are highly unstable in changing political and economic landscapes. The North Carolina Alliance for Health benefited from small sums of private funding pieced together to maintain a coalition with focus on evidence-based
policy, media, and grassroots development. This included small sums of funding, pieced together on an annual and sometimes monthly basis from voluntary health organizations, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Americans for Nonsmokers’ Rights, and Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.