Camden, New Jersey, a city of about 70,000 that sits across the Delaware River from Philadelphia, has a life expectancy gap of as much as 16 years compared to neighborhoods just 6.5 miles away. And the rates of diabetes and high blood pressure are dramatically higher than in nearby communities. 

Virtua Health is South Jersey's largest healthcare provider, and many of its patients live in Camden. When leaders at Virtua saw these staggering health statistics, they felt compelled to do something more.  

Enter Medtronic LABS. Although it has worked to build community-based, tech-enabled solutions to address healthcare disparities around the world for more than a decade, Medtronic LABS had never established a program in the United States. Until Virtua called. 

In August 2023, Medtronic LABS and Virtua launched Healthy Neighbor. The goal of the program was to improve health outcomes with a home visiting program where community healthcare workers provide integrated health and social care for patients living with high blood pressure and/or type 2 diabetes.

Medtronic LABS equips team members with a technology platform called SPICE from Medtronic LABS. This digital tool streamlines their work by capturing basic healthcare information, tracking blood pressure and glucose over time, and flagging elevated readings for follow-up. The data is used to link community and health system care and reduces paperwork, allowing health workers to focus on their patients.

The program is working — and the data from the first two years is remarkable. 

This graphic shows community health workers supporting patients during home visits alongside statistics highlighting improvements in hypertension and diabetes outcomes.

74% of patients with uncontrolled hypertension achieved meaningful improvement (15-point mean drop in systolic blood pressure). 69% of patients with uncontrolled diabetes achieved meaningful improvements (1.2% mean drop in A1C)1

Although patients are enrolled in the program because of uncontrolled high blood pressure or diabetes (or both), the care they receive goes far beyond treating those conditions.

Many factors influence a person’s health, and community health workers are skilled at addressing all of them. They can help their patients with housing, healthy food, utilities assistance, and mental-health support services. They provide education on nutrition, teach patients to monitor their blood pressure and glucose levels, remind them about upcoming appointments, and help them find transportation to appointments.

Dr. Ellis Monk

“It's not just what you do when you’re with the patient. The reward is seeing your patients continue to make changes after you leave. The goal of our work is to create a better lifestyle and a better outcome for our patients, beyond the time that we are with them.”

Fanny Ochoa
Community Health Worker, Healthy Neighbor

Due to the program's success, Virtua and Medtronic LABS created a toolkit that other health systems can use to establish Healthy Neighbor programs in their own communities. The goal is to help more healthcare systems address health disparities and make a meaningful difference in the health of their patients and communities. 

Denise Manlius, a Healthy Neighbor patient, said her community health worker is a great motivator and positive influence on her life. “She makes sure that I take my medications. She calls to remind me of appointments. She helped me change my eating habits. Since she’s been in my life, my A1C (blood sugar) went down. She really cares about her people.” 

Read more about how Healthy Neighbor is changing lives in Camden.

Published March 13, 2026

  1. Impact within cohort of patients that had a baseline and follow-up reading between August 1, 2023-May 5, 2025. Uncontrolled hypertension is defined as a baseline reading ≥140/90 (n=58). Uncontrolled diabetes is defined as baseline HbA1c ≥ 8% (n=26). Meaningful improvement in blood pressure is defined as achieving blood pressure control (<140 90) or a ≥10mmhg reduction in systolic blood pressure. meaningful improvement in HbA1c is defined as achieving control (HbA1c<8%) or ≥1% HbA1c.

    2.