Henry J. and Erna D. Leir Research Institute for Business, Technology, and Society

Whitepapers

Early Gains from Health Information Exchange

• Today, most health care providers store and retrieve patient medical records electronically. The widespread adoption of EHRs has spurred the development of health information exchanges where doctors, hospitals, and eventually patients can gain access to EHR data. Traditionally, the exchange of patient information stored in EHRs between medical providers (say a primary care physician and a specialist) usually involves complex, manual, time-consuming, and relatively unsecured processes that typically involve handwritten signatures, photocopying and faxing. 
• Imagine a patient is involved in a motor accident and is rushed to a community emergency department at night. A CT scan is performed, but there is no neurologist available or on-call. With HIE, the CT scan is sent via a secured platform to the nearest tertiary healthcare facility within a few minutes. The neurologist accesses the CT file and calls the community ED physician to discuss the patient’s condition. If the CT scan indicates no severe trauma, the ED manages the patient, and no unnecessary transfer is done. Where severe trauma is observed, the patient is transferred for immediate surgery to be performed, and the CT scan probably need not be repeated. 
• The emergency physician is meeting Mr. J for the first time, and through HIE is immediately aware of Mr. J’s allergies and current medications while Mr. J is unconscious (reduced probability of medical error!). The ED physician also has at her disposal, Mr. J’s extended medical history, including recent hospital admissions to facilitate decision-making (enhanced decision-making!). Laboratory tests and imaging recently done are available and need not be repeated (reduced medical costs!). Even more, Mr. J’s primary physician gets an alert about Mr. J’s presence in the ED and is able to support (care coordination!), and later schedule an appointment when Mr. J is discharged from the ED. The above scenarios give a glimpse of what HIE has to offer Americans. These and many more are the reasons why the United States government has appropriated a little over half a billion dollars to states to build health information exchange infrastructure. 

Trend in Drug-Overdose Deaths after Recent Reforms in the State of New Jersey

• The prescription of opioids decreased by 24% between 2013 and 2019 state-wide.
• From 2017 to 2019, the trend in drug-overdose deaths appeared to begin to level off, decreasing for the first time in 2019.
• All counties appeared to have experienced a marginal decline or signs of experiencing a downward trend in death counts after 2017, except for Essex County.
• With a few exceptions, counties that decreased opioid prescriptions by more than 20% had a bending or downward-trending drug-overdose death toll curve.

Evaluations 

New Jersey SBIR Matching Program

• NJIT evaluated the economic impact of the SBIR/STTR projects on five aspects:

  • Employment opportunities created: Sixty percent of the projects gave new employment opportunities. Twenty-four new positions were created of which 18 were full-time employees, 2 were part-time employees and 4 were interns. On average, each project created about 1.84 jobs. The maximum number of new jobs created by a project was 6 and the minimum was 0. Among the new employees hired, 15% were females.

  • Patent issued: Technology development and knowledge creation are important for economic growth and development. The number of patents obtained by the companies indicates innovation and new technological development. In total, 13 patents were issued for the projects: 11 U.S patents and 2 international patents. On average, about 1 patent was issued per project. The projects had also filed several other patent applications and were awaiting results.

  • Physical space expansion: The physical space expansion of the companies denotes the expansion in economic activity. Among the 13 companies surveyed, 6  (46%) of them reported expanding their physical space in NJ. They reported expansion of both their office and lab spaces. 

  • Additional investment attracted: The new companies often need more budget to continue their R&D, production, and commercialization activities.  From the survey result, it was found that the projects funded by the SBIR/STTR  matching programs were able to attract additional investments. The projects obtained an additional $6,646,378 investment in total, over 16x the CSIT matching amount and more than doubling their SBIR/STTR awards. The new investments were achieved in the form of grants, loans, and private company investments. The majority of new investments were received as grants (56%), private companies funding (38%), and as loans (6%). 1 of the 13 companies was acquired by another company for its technology.

  • Commercialization status: Most of the companies surveyed were still working on their product development. 2 of the 13 companies had launched their product in the market and 3 companies reported the formation of strategic relationship/partnership with other partner companies to start commercialization of their products.

Updated Reports: Rounds 1 and 2 Results | Presentation

New Jersey Film and Digital Media Tax Credit Program

• Under the NJIT- NJEDA Memorandum of Understanding, NJIT was to evaluate the New Jersey Film Tax Credit Program and the Edison Innovation Digital Media Tax Credit Program to determine program effectiveness. The effectiveness of the New Jersey programs can only be evaluated in the context of the national and international tax credit environment. If no jurisdiction offered any film tax credits then there would be a level playing field where New Jersey would gain the share of film production that was supported by the substantial native resources of the State. Unfortunately, the behavior of other states or international governmental entities cannot be controlled by New Jersey, so we start from the understanding that the existing environment of state and international tax credits will continue to exist.

New Jersey Technology Business Tax Certificate Transfer Program

• Under the NJIT- NJEDA Memorandum of Understanding, NJIT was to evaluate the New Jersey Technology Business Tax Certificate Transfer Program (TECH Program) to determine program effectiveness. Overall, we have determined that the program helps young biotechnology firms to create and maintain high wage, high quality jobs in New Jersey. We have not found that the program is effective in assisting young technology firms (other than biotechnology) to create and maintain high wage, high quality jobs in New Jersey. We have also determined that the cost of the tax transfers is less than the benefit of the New Jersey income tax revenues generated by the beneficiary companies.