Overview
The Hospital to Home Partnership Program (HHPP) is a two-year, $3,000,000 program designed to build partnerships between hospitals and Aging Services Access Points (ASAPs) to strengthen communication and coordination with community providers. These partners will work together to ensure that the appropriate services and supports are in place to enable hospitals to discharge individuals directly to home with home- and community-based services (HCBS), instead of a skilled nursing facility or other institutional setting. A program overview document can be found here.
Up to 10 grants of up to $300,000 each will be awarded. Eligible partnerships of ASAPs and acute care hospitals can use grant funds to embed ASAP personnel in hospitals, or for innovations to support hospital-to-home transitions.
Who can apply?
Aging Services Access Points (ASAPs)—as designated by the Executive Office of Elder Affairs (EOEA)—are eligible to apply in collaboration with an acute care hospital partner located within their Emergency Medical Services Region (EMS).
To ensure geographic distribution, up to two grants can be awarded per Emergency Medical Services (EMS) region. Hospitals and ASAPs should partner with entities within their region. However, EOHHS recognizes that there may be value in partnering with entities in bordering regions. There will be an opportunity to note this within the application and it will be taken into consideration. You can find a map and list of the regions on the mass.gov website.
ASAPs and acute care hospitals will submit a joint application. The application includes a plan for how the partners will collaborate on their project.
Partnerships can also include additional ASAPs, additional hospitals, and other additional agencies. In that case, the ASAP serving as the financial agent of the grant should submit only one application. The “partnership form” in the application will include space to list the partnering agencies, their roles, and their contact information.
Eligible Activities
This grant targets individuals who are hospitalized or presenting at an emergency room and who can be diverted to HCBS instead of continuing care in an institution. Your proposed partnership must support one of the following objectives to aid that transition:
- ASAP staff embedded within the hospital as HCBS liaisons (priority objective)
HCBS hospital liaisons will help connect individuals to HCBS alternatives instead of moving to a hospital or skilled nursing facility. Liaisons may also conduct trainings for hospital staff about these alternatives. However, this should not be their primary responsibility. Funding may also support administrative or supervisory staff as needed. Applications that support the hiring of HCBS Hospital Liaisons will receive priority review.
- Innovations to help individuals transition from hospital to home
This can include improvements (including technology) to share information more effectively or mitigate other barriers that make it difficult for individuals to discharge home directly from the hospital.
Due to the source of funding, grant funds cannot be used to:
- Support discharges to skilled nursing facilities
- Supplant existing Medicaid HCBS or any other funded initiatives
- Duplicate any Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) waiver extension proposals
Helpful Resources
The following links may be helpful as you complete your application:
Questions
For questions about the grant program, please email MAHCBSGrants@pcgus.com. You must submit any questions before the deadline, which is DATE.
Questions will not be answered individually. On DATE, answers to all submitted questions will be posted on the EOHHS website.