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Cooper University Hospital is a provider of comprehensive health services, medical education and clinical research in southern New Jersey and the Delaware Valley. The hospital is a clinical campus of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey – Robert Wood Johnson Medical School at Camden, New Jersey and offers training programs for medical students, residents, fellows, nurses and allied health professionals in a variety of specialties.

The mission of Cooper University Hospital is to advance the health status of the region’s population through the provision of appropriate health and medical care. To accomplish this mission, Cooper University Hospital serves as a principal site for the education of physicians, provides programs of allied and community health education and offers highly complex health care resources to assist in the educational process.

Coupled with its educational goals, Cooper University Hospital offers a broad agenda in the field of research. Cooper physicians are involved in ongoing research and development as they keep abreast of changing modalities of medical care. As an academic medical center, Cooper continuously attempts to improve patient’s quality of life through the research efforts of its medical staff.

The Trauma Center at Cooper University Hospital was established in 1982 and is one of only three New Jersey State-Designated Level I Trauma Centers. Cooper serves as the regional Trauma Center for southern New Jersey including Atlantic, Burlington, Camden, Cape May, Cumberland, Gloucester, Mercer, Ocean and Salem counties and acts as a resource for the Level II Trauma Centers in our region. A Level I Trauma Center cares for severely injured patients including persons involved in motor vehicle crashes, falls, and assaults with guns, knives, or other blunt objects. On average, Cooper treats more than 2,700 trauma patients each year, making it the busiest center in New Jersey.

In addition, Cooper University Hospital serves as Southern New Jersey’s major tertiary-care referral hospital for specialized services. Cooper's primary services are grouped into eight "centers of excellence," which include: the Bone & Joint Institute, Cancer Institute, Critical Care Medicine, Heart Institute, Level 1 Trauma Center, Neurological Institute and Urological Institute.

In April of 2007, Cooper University Hospital treated New Jersey Governor Jon S. Corzine who had suffered an open femur fracture and severe chest injuries due to a car accident on the Garden State Parkway. After 11 days in intensive care, eight of them on a ventilator, and three operations on his leg, Mr. Corzine was released from the hospital on April 30 and resumed his official duties as governor six days later.

Expansion

In June of 2004, Cooper University Hospital announced a $220 million expansion to Cooper’s Health Sciences Campus that includes a new patient care pavilion attached to the existing facility. Subsequently, plans for the new patient care pavilion was expanded from six floors (211,000 sq. ft.) to ten floors (312,000 sq. ft.), with the inclusion of additional landscape improvements and patient amenity design features. This expansion involves the most dramatic physical expansion of the hospital in nearly 30 years.

Cooper University Hospital's pavilion project is part of the hospital's efforts to create a regional health science campus in Camden, which will also include a new $130 million Academic and Research Building at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School as well as a stem cell institute, auditorium and public meeting center, clinical research building, clinical office building and additional off-street parking.

In addition, landscaping and decorative lighting for the entire Cooper Plaza area are planned to enhance safety and create a scenic evening presentation. The campus streetscape will extend into the neighborhood, using materials that complement the existing historical buildings. There are also plans to relocate all overhead wiring underground to further add to the area's aesthetics. The goal is a secure, well-lit community and campus where people feel safe walking, both day and night.

History

The origins of Cooper University Hospital can be traced to 1887, when a prominent Quaker family named Cooper opened a hospital to provide medical care for the indigent population of Camden. Richard M. Cooper, M.D., four of his brothers and sisters and one nephew donated money and land for the hospital to be built between Sixth and Seventh Streets, from Mickle to Benson Streets. Though the four-story, stone building was completed in 1877, the original 30-bed hospital stood empty for 10 years until enough money was available to open for patients in August 1887.

In the first 100 years of the hospital's existence, additions to the original building and the construction of freestanding structures on the surrounding five acres of land further anchored the Cooper Hospital campus in Camden. Inside these buildings medicine advanced at a rapid pace, eventually turning the small community hospital into a 540-bed regional tertiary care center that cared for the population's most critically ill patients. Hospital officials and leading physicians often engaged in heated debates on the merits of moving to another location, but the answer was always the same: Cooper Hospital should stay in Camden.

Over time, Cooper Hospital has not only remained true to its original mission but has grown to meet the medical challenges of a geographically dispersed patient population and a rapidly changing health care environment. Before Cooper celebrated its first 100 years of service, professional hospital managers had replaced well-intentioned Board of Trustees in managing hospitals, while government regulations affected such physician prerogatives as determining patient length of stay and what physicians would be reimbursed for specific procedures. Cooper Hospital eventually became The Cooper Health System and the clinical campus of the University of Medicine and Dentistry / Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. The development of the medical school affiliation advanced Cooper as the major teaching hospital in South Jersey.

When Cooper celebrated its centennial anniversary in 1987, no one could have predicted the dramatic changes that would take place in health care over the next 10 years. Dominated by health insurers who pay for patient services, hospitals everywhere have aligned with health care systems in order to negotiate favorable payments from payors and develop the medical expertise to draw large numbers of patients.

To compete in this managed care environment, Cooper Hospital/University Medical Center (now Cooper University Hospital) became one component of an integrated health care delivery system called The Cooper Health System in 1996. The Cooper name is now synonymous with a full range of health system services - including prevention, primary care, specialty ambulatory services, all levels of inpatient care and subacute care. While Cooper continues to invest in its Camden facility, multi-specialty physician offices are now also strategically located throughout the southern New Jersey region.

External links

• Cooper University Hospital

• Articles with a promotional tone from May 2008
• Hospitals in New Jersey
• 1887 establishments