The Clinical Decision Unit (CDU) of Cooper University Hospital is a brand new, state-of-the-art unit run by the Division of Hospital Medicine in the Department of Medicine.

John P. Sheridan, Jr., President and CEO at Cooper remarked at the opening ceremony, “This unit is going to make a huge difference in our overall hospital operations and through-put for patients.”

The new unit has been specifically designed to meet the needs of patients who on presentation to the Emergency Department do not require in patient admission but are not quite well enough to be discharged and can benefit from further observation. Once in the CDU, patients are cared for by a multidisciplinary team evaluating the patient’s condition and test results which will result in the patient’s admission or discharge within a 24-hour timeframe.

Examples of patients who may be cared for in the Clinical Decision Unit include patients with:

• Chest pain
• Asthma
• Abdominal pain
• Dehydration

All employees are invited to tour this new unit with:

• 20 private rooms with bathroom facilities
• All rooms are equipped with patient emergency equipment
• Two rooms designed with handicap accessibility
• Telemetry monitoring
• Central nursing station
• Ample computer station alcoves
• Medication room
• Patient comfort: Two showers on unit, electronic shades on room windows, flat screen televisions

In a medical emergency, time is of the essence, especially when it comes to your heart. A new software called LifeNet is being implemented at Cooper University Hospital to shorten the length of time between identifying a heart attack and providing potentially life-saving treatment.

The LifeNet Management System, from Physio-Control, electronically connects EMS personnel on the scene of a heart attack with Cooper’s emergency department. The emergency medicine specialist transmits a 12-lead EKG via wireless modem to emergency personnel and cardiologists at the hospital, who can then confirm the diagnosis of a heart attack prior to the patient’s arrival. This transmission of critical data allows doctors to bring patients quickly into the catheterization lab or operating room.

Read the full story

This week’s edition of The New Yorker published a comprehensive report highlighting the Camden Coalition of Healthcare Providers, Jeffrey Brenner, MD, Director of the Coalition and a physician at Cooper, and its innovative approach to reducing health-care costs.

Through the creation of the Camden Coalition and his use of data mining and statistical analysis to map health-care use and expenses, Brenner and his team have helped hundreds of Camden patients better navigate the healthcare system.

Jeffrey Brenner, a physician in Camden, New Jersey, has used data mining and statistical analysis to map health-care use and expenses. His calculations revealed that just one per cent of the hundred thousand people who made use of Camden’s medical facilities accounted for thirty per cent of its costs. That’s only a thousand people—about half the size of a typical family physician’s panel of patients. In his experience the people with the highest medical costs—the people cycling in and out of the hospital—were usually the people receiving the worst care. If he could find the people whose use of medical care was highest, he figured, he could do something to help them. If he helped them, he would also be lowering their health-care costs.

To read the complete article visit The New Yorker online at newyorker.com.

Several health web sites and magazines published an article about a study conducted in Cooper’s Emergency Department that found patients with non-traumatic abdominal pain express greater confidence in decision making when CT Imaging is included in the diagnostic evaluation.

Lead study author, Brigitte M. Baumann, MD, MSCE, Division Head, Clinical Research Department of Emergency Medicine at Cooper, concluded that despite patients’ confidence in CT imaging, the researchers reported that patients had minimal understanding of radiation exposure. The findings suggest that efforts to reduce unnecessary medical imaging will need to not only address healthcare provider practices, but also include patient education and awareness.

To read the complete article and learn more about the study, visit healthimaging.com.

On Thursday, the Asbury Park Press published an article about a medical exercise hosted by The U.S. Air Force Expeditionary Center known as Eagle Flag.  During the drill, various local, state and federal agencies — from municipal first-aid squads to the Federal Emergency Management Agency — respond to a scenario in which a category 3 hurricane hits the Garden State.

“There’s a lot more than trauma patients, or people with broken bones,” Rick Hong, MD, assistant professor of clinical emergency medicine at Cooper University Hospital in Camden, said Thursday. “We’re dealing with people with diabetes, people who have strokes, people with heart conditions . . . and two babies were born yesterday.”

To read the complete article visit app.com.