Grant Awards

In a partnership with ten children’s hospitals, UCLA as a partner in the Children’s Hospital Association (CHA) receives a part of a three-year, $23 million Health Care Innovation Award from the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI). This landmark award is designated is to transform care for children with complex medical conditions while simultaneously reducing spending, as two-thirds of them are covered by Medicaid. The Coordinating All Resources Effectively (CARE) will be national study focused on improving outcomes and reducing the cost of health care for children with medical complexity (CMC) enrolled in Medicaid. Dr. Carlos Lerner is the lead principle investigator representing UCLA Mattel Children’s Hospital in the CHA. 

UCLA Health joins the University of Southern California (USC) and Children’s Hospital Los Angeles(CHLA) to support and expand the Southern California Consortium for Technology and Innovation in Pediatrics (CTIP). CTIP is an FDA-funded Pediatric Device Consortia (PDC) dedicated to promoting and advancing the commercialization of pediatric medical devices. It was established to address the most important component missing from pediatric device innovation: simultaneously engaging clinicians, engineers, regulators, hospital administrators, patients and the business community in the processes of technology assessment and development. Dr. Daniel Levi and Desert Horse-Grant are members of CTIP’s steering committee. They will provide the Consortium with strategic guidance as well as access to business, financial, regulatory, reimbursement, engineering, scientific, clinical and intellectual property expertise. The duo will also provide resources to help develop and commercialize pediatric medical devices. The proposed new program, known as the West Coast CTIP, will be able to offer several $50,000 awards a year for both direct or indirect services to inventors with concept to commercialization milestones. It will also expand resources to inventors through partnerships with the major pediatric academic centers on the West Coast. Dr. Levi is a member of the the UCLA Children’s Discovery and Innovation Institute (CDI). The CDI was founded to enhance the culture for innovation and groundbreaking collaborative research spanning from molecule to community. (Please link the words at the beginning to the CDI site).

“We know that developing products specifically for pediatric patients can present unique challenges to device developers and there are still many unmet needs for children with serious, debilitating or rare diseases. This is why we continue to work to encourage device innovation for medical conditions that impact young populations. Our Pediatric Device Consortia Grant Program is one of a number of initiatives underway to foster the development and approval of safe and effective pediatric-specific medical devices.” – Scott Gottlieb, M.D., FDA

UCLA Biodesign received funding to support the development of a new curriculum for sustainable practices in medical device design. The rising global market segment of disposable medical components and supplies, as well as the need for life cycle assessments that encapsulate both sustainability and clinical utility early in the product development process are what motivated the new cirriculum. Awardee Dr. Jennifer McCaney has partnered with several leading medical device materials manufacturers to execute this initiative, including W.L. Gore & Associates, Inc. and RAUMEDIC Inc.

UCLA received a five-year award from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute had gifted $3.7M to fund a Center of Excellence in Learning Health Systems. The new effort will be called the SPIRIT K12 program, the will support young researchers who will study how to rapidly evaluate and implement health system changes in information technology and new clinical innovations to benefit patients. “Learning health systems, through their rapid assessment and implementation of new innovations, ensure that patients receive high quality, safe and efficient care,” said Dr. Michael Ong, co-director of the SPIRIT K12 program.