This notice announces the opportunity to apply for funding under the Building Capacity to Improve Collecting and Reporting Viral Suppression Data to the Medicaid Adult Core Set cooperative agreement, as a Special Project of National Significance.

This initiative seeks to develop strategies

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to build capacity among HIV surveillance and Medicaid programs for reporting high-quality HIV viral suppression data to comply with reporting of the HIV Viral Load Suppression (HVL-AD) measure on the Medicaid Adult Core Set.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Child and Adult Core Set Annual Review Workgroup has encouraged efforts to create partnerships among federal agencies (CMS, Centers for Disease and Control and Prevention (CDC), and HRSA); Medicaid and public health agencies; and managed care plans to help states gain access to the laboratory data required to measure viral suppression.

Recommendations from the workgroup include the sharing of information and lessons learned across states as necessary.

This initiative seeks to support the implementation of the recommendations from the HIV/AIDS Health Improvement Affinity Group (HHIAG) with the ultimate goals of improving health outcomes for people with HIV through more efficient and complete strategies in the reporting of viral suppression measures.

HRSA will award one (1) System Coordination Provider (SCP) to select, fund, and work with up to 10 RWHAP Part B states1 and their associated HIV surveillance and Medicaid programs.

There are three (3) goals of the program:
1.

Build capacity of up to 10 states to report high-quality (i.e., accurate and complete) HIV viral suppression data to Medicaid with the goal of improving reporting of the viral suppression measure (HVL-AD) to CMS as part of annual reporting of the Medicaid Adult Core Set (Implementation Phase).

a.

The SCP will facilitate and work with the selected states on the implementation and piloting of strategies through the adoption of the Institute of Healthcare Improvement (IHI) Breakthrough Series Learning Collaborative Model as its framework to achieve improvements.

i.

Strategies may include 1) establishing work plans to achieve the goals of the project; 2) putting in place workflows to submit the HVL-AD data to Medicaid; 3) developing or updating key documents to enhance data sharing or data linkage, 4) implementing legal, privacy, and confidentiality policies, processes, and frameworks, 5) utilizing secure platforms, interoperability standards, and confidential matching algorithms, and 6) promoting collaboration and implementing demonstration pilot tests to operationalize improvements in the reporting of HVL-AD data among states utilizing the learning collaborative concept of 1 For purposes of this NOFO, “states” include the District of Columbia.

continuous quality improvement approach of Plan, Do, Study, Act (PDSA) cycles.

b.

The SCP will work with the states in assembling a panel of experts and stakeholders in the planning and development of effective strategies.

Also, the SCP will help states identify challenges as well as assist the states in piloting small changes through continuous quality improvement activities through PDSA cycles to describe tests, adaptations, and recommended changes that bring improvements in the collection and reporting of HIV viral suppression data.

2.

Evaluate the project (ongoing evaluation).

The SCP will develop and conduct a rigorous, mixed method, multi-site evaluation.

3.

Disseminate and replicate innovative, sustainable strategies (Sustainability and Dissemination Phase).

The SCP will work with RWHAP Part B states and HRSA staff to disseminate and promote the replication of findings and lessons learned from the project.

The dissemination audience will include participating states and other jurisdictions not funded under this project.

As part of the dissemination goal, the SCP will develop and disseminate a Technical Toolkit that provides detailed guidance on how states can implement data sharing and data linkages to report the HVL-AD measure to CMS as part of annual Adult Core Set reporting and lessons learned from the initiative.

Improved HIV viral suppression data reported to the Medicaid Adult Core Set should also be reported to CDC.