Monday, November 14th, 2011 - 9:11
Monday, November 14, 2011 - 08:00
The Obama administration will announce $1 billion in grants to boost the health care workforce and try to lower the costs of delivering care.
The Obama administration is expected Monday to announce $1 billion in grants to expand the health care workforce, from doctors to community workers, according to The Washington Post. The "Heallth Care Innovation Challenge" will try to tackle two goals simultaneously: boosting employment and augmenting the health care infrastructure so that it is ready to absorb the estimated 32 million newly insured under the health reform law.
Experts are forecasting a shortage of primary care doctors and health care support staff as the decade wears on. The grants will go to doctors, community groups, and local governments that participate in caring for patients in federal health programs such as Medicaid and Medicare, according to the Post.
At the same time the grants are expanding the health care workforce, they also seek to inspire lower-cost ways to care for patients. The transformation, for example, will likely involve more in-home and community-based care than more expensive care in institutional settings like nursing homes.
