Supporting the Expansion of Outcomes-Based Preventive Care

People in the U.S. bear the highest health care costs in the world but experience substantively worse clinical outcomes than their peers in other developed countries. And for those from communities of color, Indigenous communities, and low-income or rural communities, the outcomes are far worse due to interconnected social problems—i.e., unfairly distributed access to economic opportunity, food, housing, safety, and transportation—that carry real health effects.

With these issues in mind, the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) in 2024 launched the HEalth Care Rewards to Achieve Improved OutcomES (HEROES) Program to create a health care system that prioritizes prevention rather than treatment. HEROES aims to incentivize organizations in the health care ecosystem to expand and improve preventive care, reduce health care costs, and nurture healthier, happier Americans.

ARPA-H engaged Social Finance as a technical assistance partner to support health care coalitions—these are place-based groups comprised of public and private organizations working toward shared community health goals—applying to HEROES. The program intends to pay up to $99 million for meaningful reductions across four key outcomes:

• Opioid overdoses
• Alcohol-related health harms
• Heart attack and stroke risk
• Severe maternal complications during delivery and 60 days after

ARPA-H requires participating coalitions to serve a minimum number of people, and awarded projects will be implemented at scale so as many people as possible can access quality care.

Each awarded coalition may receive up to $15 million from ARPA-H over three years. Coalitions are encouraged to partner with external funders to scale and sustain their projects.

Goals

• Reduce opioid overdoses, alcohol-related health harms, 10-year risk of heart attack and stroke, and maternal complications during delivery and post-delivery.
• Test and scale innovative strategies to improve the health of Americans nationwide, especially those who have been underserved by the traditional health care system.
• Attract transformative private and public funding to build a market for funding preventative health care beyond the duration of the HEROES Program.

The Work

• Applicant knowledge sharing: Share learnings from our experience with community applicants through office hours and online webinars, primarily focused on how to finance, contract, and implement Pay for Success projects.
• Coalition building: Facilitate connections between health care providers, community-based organizations, philanthropies, private companies, educational institutions, governments, and other stakeholders.
• Applicant technical support: Provide one-on-one technical assistance to community applicants.