CAMDEN, NJ – The Camden Coalition of Healthcare Providers today announced the launch of the Camden Health Information Exchange (HIE), an electronic medical records interface that will allow Camden’s health care providers to access patient data from various sources. The Coalition makes this announcement in celebration of New Jersey Minority & Multicultural Health Month. The HIE epitomizes this year’s theme, “Take Control of your Health: Managing Chronic Diseases”, as the tool will allow providers to deliver improved care to their sickest patients.
The information hub will be provided by Noteworthy Medical Systems, a Cleveland-based health IT company that has created similar community-wide health data exchanges all over the country. The HIE will facilitate improved patient care and the sharing of detailed clinical data among community providers, the 3 major health systems in Camden, referring lab and radiology groups and other healthcare data providers in the region. "We anticipate at least 100 physicians signing on within the first six months in order to begin this ground-breaking collaboration,” remarked Mark DiFilippo, project coordinator for the Camden Citywide Diabetes Collaborative. “Noteworthy will build linkages between computer systems at Cooper, Lourdes, and Virtua Hospitals; Labcorp; and Quest. Doctors will have the information they need, at the point of care, to make the right decisions.”
Cooper University Hospital, Our Lady of Lourdes Health System, and Virtua Health all played integral roles in the establishment of Camden’s HIE. Along with Coalition staff, the Chief Information Officers (CIOs) from each health system worked collaboratively to research, plan for, and implement this groundbreaking data exchange. The first phase will be funded by contributions from all three hospitals; the Merck Company Foundation; and the New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services.
“The Camden HIE is the first of its kind in New Jersey and an integral piece to the healthcare puzzle in underserved communities like Camden,” explained Jeffrey Brenner, MD, Medical Director of the Camden Coalition of Healthcare Providers. “Many of Camden’s sickest residents bounce from emergency department to emergency department in search of quality care with little information shared between the providers who treat them.”
In the first phase of the project, an emergency department or primary care clinician will be able to access a patient’s recent lab results, radiology reports and discharge summaries. If a patient was recently discharged from another hospital, the clinical team will be able to use this information to assess the patient and plan interventions accordingly. In the second phase, the HIE will allow healthcare providers to share more detailed clinical information between EHR systems.
The system is built with patient privacy and confidentiality as a primary concern. It will ensure that only the patients’ health care providers can access information.
“Improving healthcare in America will require both a high touch and high tech approach. The Camden Coalition of Healthcare Providers is working to build a delivery system in Camden that ensures patients receive the personalized, patient-centered care that they need and that their providers have the technology to deliver high quality, coordinated, integrated health care services.”
About the Camden Coalition of Healthcare Providers
The Camden Coalition of Healthcare Providers is a six-year old strategic initiative designed to improve the quality, capacity, and accessibility of the healthcare system for vulnerable, chronically ill residents of Camden, New Jersey. Funded by grants and contributions from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Centene Foundation, the Merck Company Foundation the Cooper Health System, Virtua Health System, and the Lourdes Health System, the organization’s activities include community outreach, case management of high needs patients, health provider education, practice management capacity building, data collection and evaluation, and coalition building among key stakeholders. Visit www.camdenhealth.org.
About Noteworthy Medical Systems, Inc. Noteworthy Medical Systems, Inc., is a privately held company founded in 1996 that provides a comprehensive set of tools to effectively manage and facilitate care in the ambulatory setting. Noteworthy’s focus is to provide sophisticated applications for doctors’ offices as well as the technology to connect physicians, hospitals and healthcare communities for improved care and communication. For more information, call 877.891.8777 or visit www.noteworthymedical.com.
