Building on its long-standing commitment to improve lives and communities, the Elevance Health Foundation recently launched a new initiative: Community Action Leadership. This initiative brings together external thought leaders from across a range of disciplines. Through their collective expertise and resources, the Foundation is addressing large-scale community health needs and incentivizing action for change. The inaugural Community Action Leadership challenge focuses on patient safety.
The Patient Safety Prize invites pioneering solutions in three key areas:
- Empowering Health Literacy for Safer Patient Care: Improving health literacy while enhancing patient and caregiver engagement, fostering trust in healthcare providers, and ultimately contributing to a culture of safety and informed decision-making.
- Innovating to Eliminate Medication Errors: Pioneer solutions that enhance medication safety, improve adherence, and reduce errors to safeguard patients’ health.
- Promoting Fall-Free Futures: Developing groundbreaking solutions to enhance fall prevention and ensure safety for the elderly.
Strong proposals should emphasize positive outcomes for vulnerable populations. Eligible proposals should be able to demonstrate proof of concept, evidence of scaling, or current operations at scale. Projects in the research or ideation phase are not eligible to apply.
Eligibility
The ultimate goal for this call for proposals is to select the strongest idea(s) from our Advocate Health investigators to submit to the Patient Safety Prize. Advocate Health may submit multiple applications as long as each application comes from a different department and/or market/region (Charlotte, Winston-Salem, Georgia, Illinois, Wisconsin).
- No Overlapping Key Personnel: Investigators, co-investigators, and other key personnel cannot appear on more than on application, regardless of region/location. This ensures each team is fully committed to a single project.
- Distinct Projects Only: Each submitted project must propose a unique, non-duplicative solution.
An internal review will be conducted to confirm eligibility, avoid overlapping submissions, and identify applications that will advance. Only selected applicants will be invited to complete registration and final submission. More information can be found on the Patient Safety Prize website.
Funding
The Elevance Health Foundation will fund up to three selected applications, each receiving $1,500,000 over a two-year period. Additionally, up to two applications selected with Honorable Mentions will each receive $250,000 in funding over a two-year period.
Applications should be submitted following the RFA instructions electronically to the application system by Friday, February 20, 2026, at 11:59PM ET. Questions should be directed to Katelyn Still.
Deadlines
Internal Deadline: Friday, February 20th, 2026, at 11:59PM ET
Selection of Applicants: Monday, March 9th
External Deadline: Tuesday, March 17th, 2026, at 5:00 PM ET