Conference to explore health care improvements

Variety of insiders, officials to discuss challenges facing New Jersey.New Jersey’s health care system ranks below average for overall performance, efficiency and cost, and ideas for improvement will be explored Thursday at a day-long conference in New Brunswick, “More is Not Better: Improving Value in New Jersey Health Care.”

The conference, presented by the Rutgers Center for State Health Policy with funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, will be held from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at the New Brunswick Hyatt.

The Commonwealth Fund State Scorecard on Health System Performance, co-authored by CSHP, ranks New Jersey 26th overall in system performance and 46th in efficiency and cost.

Speakers at the conference will include Joel Cantor, director of the CSHP; Heather Howard, commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Health & Senior Services; Fred Jacobs, director of the Quality Institute of the St. Barnabas Health Care System, Jeffrey Brenner, medical director of the Camden Coalition of Healthcare Providers; Douglas McCarthy, senior research adviser for the Commonwealth Fund; Katherine Grant-Davis, president of the New Jersey Primary Care Association; Ward Sanders, president of the New Jersey Association of Health Plans, and Melanie Willoughby, senior vice president, New Jersey Business & Industry Association.

Information on the conference and registration is available at www.cshp.rutgers.edu.

E-mail Beth Fitzgerald at [email protected]