I recently met with directors of the Camden Coalition, which is seeking to radically change the way residents of Camden, New Jersey seek and receive care.  To provide context, Camden, New Jersey was America’s poorest city as of 2006 (pdf article) and one of its most violent.  Furthermore, over 50% of Camden residents visit the ER room in a year, which is over double the national average in the U.S.

This over-usage of ER rooms led a group of New Jersey physicians and public health officials to undertake the ambitious effort of tracking ER “super user” characteristics over time in order to make Camden residents healthier while lowering overall medical costs.  According to Dr. Anthony Mazzarelli of Cooper Health, who directs Cooper’s ER room and has been named one of ten Outstanding Young Americans and hosts a radio show, the ER over-usage results not only from many Camden residents lacking insurance, but also many insured residents lacking physician relationships.

In a program led by Dr. Jeffrey Brenner, the Camden Coalition is now hyper-targeting those ER super-users with an all-encompassing care management program by having physicians and public health workers promote preventative care and healthier lifestyles among these patients.  Furthermore, the Coalition has a broader goal to reach out to all Camden residents to increase access to preventative care through open access scheduling (see our previous post about open access scheduling).

A key lynchpin of their effort is effectively utilizing electronic medical record information, as a patient health record helps physicians better track and serve patients.  DocAsap also believes that online technology can help patients find appointments or interact with doctors remotely.  While internet usage in poorer areas typically trails that of wealthier communities, Camden’s young population, many of whom have cell phones and use the internet regularly, could benefit from having online tools such as DocAsap to more easily get doctor appointments.  DocAsap believes that providing intuitive doctor appointment search tools to all Americans that it can decrease over-usage of ER rooms, reduce overall healthcare cost, and create a healthier U.S. population.