NJ Makes Change To Electronic Exchange Of Medical Data

The New Jersey Department of Health (NJDOH) has launched a pilot project to ensure that birth data gets digitally transmitted from hospital Electronic Health Record (EHR) Systems directly to the state's Vital Statistics Birth Registry.

At the moment, birth registrars and nurses manually re-enter the same information into the state's birth registry, leaving more room for errors amidst the process that also takes more time to complete. The New Jersey Health Information Network (NJHIN) is now taking on that task at certain hospitals as the program is being evaluated, improving workflow efficiency while securely building the database.

According to acting Health Commissioner Jeff Brown, “By carefully designing this integration of State systems and hospital health records, we can simultaneously reduce the workloads of hospital staffers, improve the accuracy of our data, and further expedite birth certificate issuance.

“By automating the data exchange systems, we are bringing this process into the 21st century—making it faster and more accurate,” added First Lady of New Jersey, Tammy Murphy.

According to the NJDOH, there are an estimated 100,000 births in New Jersey each year that largely occur at 46 of the state's acute care facilities. During the pilot of the program, Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital New Brunswick is serving as a model with no need for staff intervention.

Suzanne Spernal, Senior Vice President for Women’s Services at RWJBarnabas Health highlighted the achievement, saying in part that they "seamlessly transmitted birth record data directly from the EHR systems to New Jersey’s vital statistics registry, streamlining the process, improving accuracy and ensuring timely documentation for every newborn.”

Learn More About The NJ Health Information Network

MORE FROM PATCH: NJ Redefines Personal Data In New Protection Proposal