Dates of Project: February 2006 through September 2013
Description: In Camden, New Jersey, hospital costs reach more than $100 million every year for its 77,344 residents. Some 30 percent of these costs come from just 1 percent of patients. Many of these patients either frequent the hospital EDs and inpatient wards, visit emergency rooms habitually for easily treatable conditions, or seek care for advanced conditions that could have been prevented if diagnosed and treated earlier.
To address this problem, the Camden Coalition of Healthcare Providers (CCHP) developed a care management initiative, Link2Care, which enrolls these high-utilizing patients while they are in the hospital and helps them after discharge to connect with primary care and receive the range of services necessary to reduce unnecessary hospital utilization.