The “EHR Innovations for Improving Hypertension Challenge” was launched by the HHS Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT and co-led by CDC and CMS as part of Million Hearts®, a national initiative to prevent one million heart attacks and strokes by 2017. Evidence-based treatment protocols provide a playbook for providers to guide their selection of effective therapies for blood pressure control.
The goal of the Challenge is to find practices that have used Clinical Decision Support (CDS) to implement the most clinically successful examples of an evidence-based blood pressure treatment protocol and gather details about these tools and their implementation. The next step is to drive widespread implementation of those tools by other providers.
“Heart disease and stroke are two of the leading causes of death in the U.S. and there are many healthcare providers who employ CDS tools, like standardized treatment approaches or protocols to control hypertension among their patients. This challenge helps us find the best examples of those efforts and scale them up” said Karen DeSalvo, M.D, National coordinator for HIT.
There will be two phases to the Challenge. Phase 1 will require practices to document the CDS tools they use to implement an evidence-based blood pressure control protocol as well as describe the details and results of the implementation. Phase 1 winners will receive $5,000 for each of the four winners.
In Phase 2, practices and their partners will conduct, evaluate, and document dissemination strategies for tools identified in Phase 1. The Phase 2 single winner will receive a $30,000 cash prize.
The deadline for submissions is October 6, 2014 and winners will be announced on October 28. For more information, go to www.challenge.gov.