Jeffrey Brenner, MD (left), Director of the Camden Coalition of Healthcare Providers and a Cooper University Physician
Through the creation of the Camden Coalition and his use of data mining and statistical analysis to map health-care use and expenses, Brenner and his team have helped hundreds of Camden patients better navigate the healthcare system.
Jeffrey Brenner, a physician in Camden, New Jersey, has used data mining and statistical analysis to map health-care use and expenses. His calculations revealed that just one per cent of the hundred thousand people who made use of Camden’s medical facilities accounted for thirty per cent of its costs. That’s only a thousand people—about half the size of a typical family physician’s panel of patients. In his experience the people with the highest medical costs—the people cycling in and out of the hospital—were usually the people receiving the worst care. If he could find the people whose use of medical care was highest, he figured, he could do something to help them. If he helped them, he would also be lowering their health-care costs.
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