CHOC Wins Clinical Practice Grant

From Orange County Business Journal

By Vita Reed

Children’s Hospital of Orange County will receive $17.7 million in a four-year grant from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

The Orange pediatric hospital will use the money to develop a “practice transformation network” designed to provide technical assistance and support for doctors and other clinicians in care delivery.

CHOC is planning to engage 1,450 primary care and specialist pediatricians to lower the cost of care for six common children’s and adolescents’ ailments: asthma, bronchiolitis, community acquired pneumonia, headaches, acute gastroenteritis and acne. The hospital said the conditions often “result in unnecessary emergency department visits and hospitalizations, testing and specialist referrals.”

The hospital is one of 39 national and regional collaborative healthcare transformation networks that received a total of $685 million in grants from the federal agency.