Digital Health Insights Grant (DIGI Grant)

I. INTRODUCTION AND PURPOSE

UMass Memorial Health’s Center for Digital Health Solutions (CDHS) is pleased to announce a call for proposals for the Digital Health Insights Grant. This program will provide grant awards to health care providers to support novel approaches to the use of digital health technologies that have a positive impact on quality, efficiency, patient and/or provider engagement, health equity, or financial outcomes.

The goal of this grant award is to support our health care providers and foster innovation in digital health across UMass Memorial Health.

II. ELIGIBILITY

• The project lead(s) or sponsor must be a provider member of UMass Memorial Medical Group
• Preference will be given to: 
  • Early-career faculty (with support of a senior faculty mentor) without a history of significant prior funding. 
  • Proposals that seek to address major health system and/or group priorities, including improving flow/reducing length of stay, operating room utilization and promoting quality of care.
  • Proposals that include interventions/solutions that have the potential to readily be translated to improve outcomes. 
  • Proposals that hold promise for immediate and sustained impact for improving quality, efficiency, health equity, patient satisfaction or provider satisfaction.

III. FUNDING

• This program is funded by a grant from UMass Memorial Health and is intended to cover the time spent by faculty/staff to implement the proposed project.
• The maximum award will be $35,000 per project and the award duration will be for 12 months.   
• CDHS may provide in-kind funding for technical and consulting services. 
• There will be one call for proposals annually (each September) in which multiple grants will be awarded.
• Funds are to be used as outlined in the proposal and milestones will need to be achieved to continue funding throughout the award period.

IV. OVERSIGHT

• The DIGI grant is overseen and administered by CDHS leadership in collaboration with an independent oversight committee (the CDHS Advisory Committee) that is comprised of clinical department chairs, IS leadership, system leadership, Finance leadership and CITC leadership.
• Members of the oversight committees are not eligible to submit a proposal. 
• Milestones will need to be achieved to continue funding throughout the award period. 
  • Awardees will report progress quarterly via InnovationStation and attend workshop meetings facilitated by CDHS leadership where all awardees can share their experiences as a group.
  • Awardees will present their work to executive leadership at the conclusion of their project. 

V. SUPPORT

• The grant is intended to cover the time spent by faculty/staff to implement the proposed project. 
• CDHS may provide in-kind funding for technical and consulting services.
• IS and CITC will review and discuss priority up front.

VI. CRITERIA FOR AWARDS

To be considered for funding, the evaluation criteria that are used to review proposals include:

• Merit – Projects that include efforts to enhance the impact of endeavors on benefiting the human condition, which for the purposes of this fund include enabling technologies. 
• Alignment to True North 
• Growth Opportunity – Projects that demonstrate the opportunity to be leveraged to attract and secure outside funding from federal, state, industry, foundation, and other sources.
• Rapid-Cycle with Narrow Scope – Projects with measurable outcomes in which substantive deliverables can be demonstrated or implemented in 12 months or less.    

VII. APPLICATION AND REVIEW PROCESS

Navigate to Innovation Station. Click the blue “Create” button. Choose “Grant Applications”, then choose “DIGI Grant“ from the dropdown.

Be prepared to provide the following:

• Name of project lead(s), the role of each in the project, project title and a one paragraph summary of the project.
• Project proposal that includes:
  • Problem statement with a description of the problem, significance and any prior work the applicant has done in the area
  • An explanation of the work proposed and intended impact of the proposed solution (one page maximum). Preference will be given to projects that can demonstrate measurable success.
  • A high-level project plan that spans 12 months, identifying significant milestones.
  • Identification of any additional resource requirements (consulting and technology) needed to meet milestones. Proposals that require hiring new permanent FTEs with CDHS funding will not be considered.
• Letter of recommendation from department chair stating that, if grant funds are obtained, time and effort will be provided as outlined in the grant. 
• UMass Chan-formatted CV for the project lead.

Proposals will be subject to a standard evaluation. The CDHS oversight committee will review all proposals and make recommendations to CDHS leadership for final selection.  

VIII. APPLICATION TIMING

The call for DIGI Grant applications is sent out each year in mid-September. Applications are due in early November. Awards are typically announced in late December.

IX. QUESTIONS?

For application criteria questions, please contact: Joyce Simon; joyce.simon@umassmemorial.org.

Thank you for your interest in this program — we look forward to your ideas.

Learn about our past DIGI Grant winners.