Dr Jeffrey Brenner Talks Hospital Super Utilizers in Camden, NJ

The first job of the Camden Coalition of Healthcare Providers was to dig into the data of the city’s hospitals and see who was using them. Half of the population, it turns out, according to Jeffrey Brenner, MD, chief executive officer of the Coalition.

He discovered that just 1% of the population accounted for 30% of hospital spending in the city, and his own patients were in the database he had. His own primary care practice was struggling to stay open, but hospitals were building new wings.

“It speaks volumes about how broken the system is,” Dr Brenner said. “It shows that we’re spending money in all the wrong places.”