CarePoint Health Launches in Hudson County, New Jersey
CarePoint Health
In an effort to improve the quality and affordability of healthcare in one of the nation’s most densely populated counties, CarePoint Health launched today. This new healthcare system unites three area hospitals and offers fully coordinated, patient-focused care through a seamless integration of medical facilities, physician networks and insurance plans.
CarePoint Health brings under one umbrella Bayonne Medical Center, Christ Hospital in Jersey City, and Hoboken University Medical Center. CarePoint Health also operates its own insurance plans that are designed to be more affordable while offering patients a choice of doctors, specialties and hospitals.
“CarePoint Health is the future of American healthcare, providing coordinated, quality care to address the health and wellness needs of Hudson County,” said Spencer Baretz, CarePoint Health’s spokesman. “By bringing together the resources of three great hospitals and the area’s leading physicians, we can offer patients what we call ‘360 degrees of care’ from the hospital to the doctor’s office to the patient’s home. Using new models of delivery, including new technologies, we can ensure that patients are treated in a fully collaborative fashion with exceptional, personalized outcomes.”
CarePoint Health will benefit from an extensive network of hundreds of physicians who will be both hospital-based and community-based. Because those doctors will be part of a system that is integrated with the insurers, they will be able to provide patients with the best care possible. Additionally, CarePoint Health will place extra emphasis on preventive care and patient education.
“Our goal is to keep patients healthy and out of the hospital,” said Baretz. “We also want to reduce the cost of healthcare in Hudson County. Creating our own insurance plans and integrating our hospitals and healthcare services helps us do that.”
Currently, CarePoint Health offers two insurance plans: CarePoint Advantage, a Medicare Advantage plan, and CarePoint Guardian, an institutional special needs plan. Additional insurance plans are expected to be introduced shortly.
As part of this long-term investment in Hudson County’s healthcare, CarePoint Health also has established the CarePoint Health Foundation, a non-profit organization created to benefit the communities served by Bayonne Medical Center, Christ Hospital and Hoboken University Medical Center. The CarePoint Health Foundation aims to strengthen access for uninsured and underinsured members of the community through outreach programs related to health, wellness, prevention and education. It will also focus on mental health community resources and access to health screenings.
CarePoint Health has launched the CarePoint Family Health Centers for uninsured and underinsured patients to receive medical services and evaluations by physicians and nurse practitioners, as well as laboratory studies, imaging studies and medications. The centers, which have been operating for several months, see more than 650 patients per month and have shown a 30-percent reduction in avoidable admissions and emergency room visits to date.
CarePoint Health plans to expand the Family Health Centers to more locations in order to give the uninsured and underinsured population access to the preventive healthcare necessary to maintain better health and reduce the rate of hospitalizations and emergency care—one of CarePoint Health’s core objectives.
In an effort to reduce readmissions for all, CarePoint Health has also launched a high-risk patient management program to promote preventive care for Hudson County residents at a higher risk of readmission to the hospital. As a part of this program, CarePoint assigns case managers and nurse practitioners to each patient to effectively monitor care and ensure they participate in preventive care services necessary to keep them healthier and out of the hospital.
This patient-centered approach is a significant investment in population health management and supports CarePoint Health’s overall commitment to making Hudson County healthier.
ABOUT CAREPOINT HEALTH:
CarePoint Health is a fully integrated healthcare system in Hudson County, N.J., that focuses on medical treatment, preventative medicine and healthcare education through the coordinated efforts of quality hospitals, leading physicians and health insurance plans. CarePoint Health, which was launched in May 2013, includes a network of more than 1,000 physicians and three hospitals: Bayonne Medical Center, Christ Hospital in Jersey City, and Hoboken University Medical Center. It also operates CarePoint Health Plans, The CarePoint Health Foundation, The CarePoint Health Research Institute, and The CarePoint Health School of Nursing.