Patient Population Data

Patient data, whether used to determine a study’s feasibility or to examine outcomes of particular treatments, is a key asset for clinical, translational, health services and epidemiological research. Patient data is available for research through the individual components of Rutgers Health or can be accessed through ResearchMatch (RM). RM is an NIH-sponsored clinical research registry of over 130,000 volunteers who are interested in participating in appropriate studies. An on-line tool, RM is now available to all Rutgers researchers for feasibility, aggregate data, and with IRB approval, recruiting study participants.

Rutgers Health is the clinical arm of Rutgers University and consists of the units of Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences and other Rutgers units devoted to caring for patients. It includes the clinical components of the following Rutgers units:

Rutgers Health Group is the single faculty practice of Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences comprising the approximately 1,000 Rutgers-employed health professionals, consisting of physicians, dentists, psychologists, nurses, pharmacists, and other health care professionals meeting and caring for patients in clinical settings throughout New Jersey. The Rutgers Health Network consists of affiliated hospitals and community practices, medical groups, wellness centers and other affiliated entities and partners including those of the RWJBarnabas Health system (RWJBH).

The Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School (RWJMS) faculty practice has approximately 500 physicians in 40 specialties and in 2016 had 344,000 ambulatory visits involving 104,000 unique patients. The ambulatory practice uses the GE Centricity EMR, which contains data on over 1,000,000 individual patients with records dating back to the year 2000. In addition, RWJMS has a patient portal, RWJMedconnect, which is integrated with the Centricity EMR and provides secure electronic messaging using the Surescripts Secure Messenger. The RWJMS EMR is connected to the Jersey Health Connect (JHC) Health Information Exchange and contributes a Consolidated Clinical Document Architecture (C-CDA) document to the HIE for every patient encounter seen in the ambulatory practice. The RWJMS EMR is connected to dbMotion, an integration tool made by Allscripts that permits real time sharing and reconciliation of clinical data with Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital (RWJUH), the primary affiliated teaching hospital of the RWJMS and the Robert Wood Johnson Physicians Enterprise (a multi-specialty group practice that is affiliated with RWJUH and part of RWJ Barnabas Health). In addition, the RWJMS EMR has numerous interfaces with RWJUH for exchange of documents, laboratory data, radiology and diagnostic tests and a bidirectional document interface with the Cancer Institute of New Jersey (RCINJ). The Centricity EMR used by RWJMS is also used by the Rutgers Community Health Center (RCHC) which is the clinical practice of the Rutgers School of Nursing and by the Eric B. Chandler Health Center, a federally qualified health center (FQHC) affiliated with the medical school and with RWJUH. If you are interested in conducting research on the RWJMS population, contact Frank Sonnenberg, MD, Chief Medical Informatics Officer of RWJMS.

The New Jersey Medical School (NJMS) faculty practice, located in Newark, has approximately 372 physicians in 42 specialties and 111 sub-specialties, and in 2016 had approximately 214,000 ambulatory visits involving 100,720 unique patients. The faculty of NJMS currently see outpatients at University Hospital’s (UH) ambulatory care center which utilizes the Epic EMR system, which currently contains data on individual outpatients dating back to the mid-1990’s. NJMS is in the process of implementing the Epic ambulatory EMR for its faculty practice. The Epic EMR and inpatient system are in use by University Hospital in Newark, which is the primary affiliated teaching hospital of NJMS. The Epic EMR environment has an associated patient portal, Mychart, which will provide secure electronic messaging. The EPIC EMR is currently connected to the NJII New Jersey Health Information Network. If you are interested in conducting research on the NJMS population, contact Alfonso Waller, MD, Chief Medical Informatics Officer of NJMS.

Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey (RCINJ) is located in New Brunswick and is closely affiliated with the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital. RCINJ serves as the State of New Jersey’s only National Cancer Institute (NCI)-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey Network includes hospitals across the State. Together with the Cancer Institute, the Network hospitals provide cancer care to over one third of the state’s cancer patients. Hospitals include Bayshore Community Hospital, JFK Medical Center, Jersey Shore University Medical Center, Ocean Medical Center, Riverview Medical Center, RWJ University Hospital, RWJ University Hospital – Hamilton, RWJ University Hospital – Somerset, and Southern Ocean Medical Center. RCINJ currently uses the Aria electronic health record. It is interfaced with Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital and with the GE Centricity EMR used by RWJMS. If you are interested in conducting research on the RCINJ population, contact David Foran, MD, Chief Information Officer and Executive Director, Computational Imaging & Biomedical Informatics of RCINJ.

Eric B. Chandler Health Center is a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) affiliated with the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School that provides comprehensive health care to underserved patient populations. It uses the same instance of the GE Centricity EMR used by the faculty practice of RWJMS so clinical data are completely integrated between the two institutions. If you are interested in conducting research on the RCINJ population, contact Eric Jahn, MD, Senior Associate Dean for Community Affairs.

Rutgers School of Nursing (SON) provides care to an underserved population in Newark, NJ and also uses the GE Centricity EMR used by the RWJMS. If you are interested in conducting research on the RCHC population, contact Caroline Dorsen, PhD, FNP-BC, Associate Dean of Clinical Partnerships, Clinical Associate Professor.

Environmental and Occupational Health Institute (EOHSI) is home to several clinical programs, including an occupational health practice and ongoing care for a large population of 9/11 first responders who are being monitored and cared for through a federally funded program. Both clinical programs use the GE Centricity EMR. EOSHI also collects environmental and exposure data, much of it long-term. For more information, contact Judith Graber, PhD, Acting Director of Environmental Epidemiology and Statistics.

University Behavioral Health Care (UBHC) provides primary mental health care to more than 13,000 patients annually, including more than 4000 individuals with a serious mental illness (i.e., schizophrenia or bipolar disorder). If you would wish to conduct research on the UBHC population, contact Steve Silverstein, Director of Research, UBHC.

RWJBarnabas Health (RWJBH) was formed in 2016 by the merger of the Robert Wood Johnson Health System and the Barnabas Health System. RWJBH is comprised of 11 acute care hospitals, 3 acute care children’s hospitals, a leading pediatric rehabilitation hospital, a freestanding behavioral health center, ambulatory care centers, geriatric centers, the state’s largest behavioral health network, comprehensive home care and hospice programs, fitness and wellness centers, retail pharmacy services, medical groups, diagnostic imaging centers and four accountable care organizations. RWJBH is New Jersey’s second largest private employer with more than 32,000 employees, 9,000 physicians on the combined medical staffs (of which in excess of 1,200 are employed) and 1,000 residents and interns. The new combined system treats over three million patients each year with over 200,000 inpatient admissions, over two million outpatient visits (including 700,000 Emergency Department visits) and more than 24,000 newborn deliveries.

The System’s geographic coverage spans Hudson, Essex, Union, Middlesex, Mercer, Somerset, Monmouth and Ocean Counties and encompasses the center of the State serving in excess of five million residents. The hospitals included in the RWJBH are the following:

The Robert Wood Johnson Physician Enterprise (RWJ PE) is a multi-specialty physician practice within the RWJBarnabas Health System. It has approximately 125 physician in 14 specialties including primary care. Outpatient practices use the Allscripts Touchworks EHR. Data from these practices is analyzed using the Conifer population health and analytics platform.

Robert Wood Johnson Barnabas Health Partners (RWJBHP) is an accountable care organization (ACO) that was established in 2012 as a joint venture of the Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital and the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. It includes all physicians in the RWJ PE and approximately 100 physicians on the faculty of the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and altogether includes 130 practices with over 750 physicians. For more information about clinical data, contact David Arnold.

University Correctional Health Care (UCHC) provides all of the mental and physical health care for the New Jersey state prison system, serving roughly 21,500 inmates in twelve adult correctional facilities, 410 residents in 14 JJC locations and 1,000 individuals in 10 SPB offices. If you would wish to conduct research on the UBHC population, contact Julie White, Chief Operating Officer, UBHC.

Jersey Health Connect (JHC) is the Northern and Central New Jersey health information exchange, consisting of 30 hospitals and health systems, and over 140 long-term care facilities. It boasts 430,000 online patient connections, 7.3M patient records, and 4.9M clinical transactions monthly. JHC covers roughly 75% of the NJ healthcare market by patient volume. Of JHC’s almost 7.3M patients, 789K are from the Robert Wood Johnson Hospital and Medical Group. The personal health record provides patient demographic data, laboratory test results, radiology test results (text), transcribed reports and Health Summary data (commonly includes problem lists, allergies, medication lists, etc.). JHC provides a longitudinal view of a patient’s experience across a community of care. JHC collects data from member hospitals, physicians and other care providers, and provides a patient view of this consolidated record. To explore the use of these data for research, contact Jim Cavanagh.

Observational Health Data Sciences and Informatics (OHDSI) is a multi-stakeholder, multi-institutional, interdisciplinary collaborative that is striving to bring out the value of observational health data through large-scale analytics. Our research community enables active engagement across multiple disciplines (e.g., clinical medicine, biostatistics, computer science, epidemiology, life sciences) and spans multiple stakeholder groups (e.g., researchers, patients, providers, payers, product manufacturers, regulators). Using the OMOP common data model (CDM), OHDSI standardizes the structure, content, and analytics of data in such a way that they can optimally support specific use cases. The consortium is also developing open-source tools and processes to help researchers implement the OMOP CDM and the associated standardized analytics tools within your institutions. Rutgers is a member of OHDSI. For more information, contact Tobias Gerhard.

Oncology Research Information Exchange (ORIEN) launched in May 2014, is a collaboration of 17 cancer centers, with provides a standard system for tracking patient molecular, clinical and epidemiological data and follows the patient throughout his or her lifetime. To date, more than 124,000 consented patients have agreed to donate their tissue and clinical data for research to understand cancer at the molecular level. ORIEN members, including Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey, share de-identified data to accelerate the development of precision medicine and treatments, which enables researchers and clinicians to more quickly match eligible patients to clinical trials and conduct larger and more comprehensive analyses. For more information, contact Maria Serrano.

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