Jersey Health Connect
Background & Overview
Jersey Health Connect is dedicated to improving healthcare quality for all New Jersey residents through Health Information Exchange (HIE). As the state’s largest entity for HIE, JHC connects a wide-array of healthcare stakeholders, including thousands of physicians and medical offices, over 30 hospitals and health systems, and over 140 long-term care facilities. In addition, the JHC network links multiple statewide homecare agencies serving over 6 million patients.
JHC is a non-profit organization incorporated in February 2010, one of four HIEs in the state awarded an economic stimulus grant from the New Jersey Health Care Facilities Financing Authority – funded by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology to promote statewide electronic medical record exchange under the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act. As a non-profit, JHC is governed by a voluntary Board of Directors that includes health information professionals from the State’s leading healthcare organizations. The organization maintains administrative offices in Princeton, New Jersey.
Jersey Health Connect Key Metrics:
- 32 Hospitals & Health Systems
- 140 Long-Term Care Facilities
- 3,400 Connected Physicians & Offices
- 430,000 Online Patient Connections
- 4,870,00 Clinical Transactions (per month)
- 6,900,000 Patient Records
Health Information Exchange Benefits
Historically, a major obstacle in care delivery has been untimely and limited access to patient medical information. Since most patients see multiple providers, their medical information has to be shared across different systems based on different technologies. These technical differences create barriers to both sharing and using health information in a timely manner. Jersey Health Connect is changing all that — offering multiple benefits:
- Saving Time – offering faster access to medical information
- Enhancing Privacy – adhering to the highest security standards
- Improving Quality of Care – providing accurate transmission among providers
- Reducing Costs – avoiding unnecessary and duplicative care
Through participation in Jersey Health Connect, providers can now quickly share medical data, making it easier to collaborate on patient care to support better outcomes. It also makes it easier for patients to participate in their care by providing (timely and secure) access to their own medical information. The core benefit of Jersey Health Connect for patients is not just recording information from their electronic health record online, but allowing and facilitating that information to follow them whenever and wherever they need it.