One of the most striking changes in the healthcare landscape over the past several years has been the rising medical complexity of patients undergoing surgery. This change has led to a national call for more advanced levels of collaboration and perioperative management to address the growing incidence of surgical patient co-morbidities. This level of collaboration is a standard at Cooper University Hospital, where the Department of Anesthesia has been an essential part of the treatment algorithm in high-risk cases for many years.
“Our primary goal is always to provide perioperative patient optimization,” says Michael E. Goldberg, MD, Chairman of the Department of Anesthesia at Cooper University Hospital. “However, we believe the depth and breadth of our faculty also allows us to provide superior support for a sicker, more complex patient population.”
Michael Rosenbloom, MD, Head of the Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery, feels the important role that Cooper Anesthesia plays in his program’s exceptional outcomes can not be overstated. “This is one of the finest anesthesia programs in the country,” says Dr. Rosenbloom. “In the past four years, we performed 73 minimally invasive mitral and tricuspid valve repairs with zero mortality. Those statistics can not be achieved without a world-class anesthesia program.”
With a faculty of 30 anesthesiologists, 42 nurse anesthetists, 16 residents, and one fellow, the Cooper Department of anesthesia provides support for general surgery, neurosurgery, vascular, cardiothoracic, pediatrics, and obstetrics/gynecology at Cooper. Outpatient anesthesia services are provided at the Voorhees Surgery Center, the Digestive Health Institute in Mount Laurel, the endoscopy center in Burlington County and the in-vitro fertilization center in Marlton.
In addition to operative support , the Anesthesia Department is an integral member of the Critical Care Medicine team in the Intensive Care Unit. David J. Fish, MD, a nationally known anesthesiologist and intensivist, has recently joined the department faculty as the Division Head for Critical Care in the Department of Anesthesiology.
Cooper’s Anesthesia Department maintains a commitment to the latest in technologic advances, and state-of-the-art intraoperative monitoring equipment. Cooper Anesthesia was an early adopter of bispectral index or BIS monitoring to measure intra-operative awareness. All Cooper operating suites are equipped with BIS monitors which utilize data from a single channel electroencephalogram (EEG) to quantify the level of alertness while under anesthesia.
One of the fastest growing segments of the anesthesia service is the Cooper Pain Management Center. The comprehensive, multidisciplinary pain management program offers the most advanced treatments available, such as: cervical, thoracic, and lumbar epidural steroid blocks; caudal and trigger point blocks; as well as insertion of peripheral nerve and spinal cord stimulators, and epidural and spinal narcotic catheter pumps.
The Cooper Anesthesia Department’s commitment to excellence extends to academic as well as clinical endeavors. Department faculty and fellows have produced a number of recent publications on pain management, intraoperative awareness and prevention of central line infections. And, a nationally recognized education program has been established in the Simulation Center under the direction of Amanda R. Burden, MD.
“We are also participating in a number of clinical trials: a pediatric nausea and vomiting study, postoperative cognitive dysfunction, and a device study focusing on complex regional pain syndrome,” says Dr. Goldberg.
For more information about the programs, services and faculty of the Cooper Anesthesia Department, please call: 856.342.2919.