Since 2010, health IT experts at a New Jersey Innovation Institute (NJII) program have trained thousands of primary care providers and specialists in the state to adopt electronic health record (EHR) systems to keep better track of their patients and improve the quality of their care. This week, NJII received a $2.9 million federal grant to develop a safe and reliable way for a patient’s many providers to share these records.
Currently patients’ electronic health records live in a number of different silos, such as doctors’ offices, hospitals and urgent care facilities, and it is difficult for the various providers to exchange protected health care information. The grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HSS) will allow NJII to develop and manage an accurate and reliable Master Person Index that will house a patient’s records from all of these facilities, with the ability to transmit them to care providers as needed.The data platform will be rolled out initially to healthcare provider groups in the Newark metro region and expanded over the next few years to facilities throughout the state.
“We’re honored to be recipients of this grant from the HHS and to have the opportunity to put NJII’s innovative technology and services to work in advancing patient care here in New Jersey,” said Donald Sebastian, the president of NJII, an NJIT corporation. Tomas Gregorio, NJII’s senior executive director of healthcare delivery systems, added, “The need for the safe, secure and effective exchange of healthcare information among physicians, hospitals, home health providers and insurers is vital to the wellbeing of the people of New Jersey. We are eager to advance health information technology through this grant.”
The grant was awarded by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC), a division of HHS, to further the goal of “an interoperable learning health system that achieves better care, smarter spending and healthier people,” as the agency put it. It was among 20 such awards totaling about $38 million.
“We have made great strides in the adoption and use of health IT. As we move beyond adoption to a learning health system where information is available when and where it matters most, it is important to ensure greater care coordination at the community level, and these grants provide resources to meet this goal,” said Karen DeSalvo, M.D., M.P.H., the national coordinator for health IT.
NJII was designated by the New Jersey Department of Health to create and manage the system.
“The Department of Health congratulates the New Jersey Innovation Institute on receiving this funding,” said New Jersey Health Commissioner Mary O’Dowd. “With this grant, NJII will support the further development of the New Jersey Health Information Network, which will expand the use of health information technology and health information exchange to better coordinate patient care in our state.”
Tracey Regan
tregan@njit.edu
