Cooper University Health Care has launched a new approach to primary care medicine with the opening of the Cooper Advanced Care Center located in Camden, NJ. This new and innovative service was established to provide our local underserved population with unprecedented access to a collaborative practice of 19 medical and surgical specialties under one roof. The center will incorporate traditional provider visits with models including group visits, open-access scheduling and enhanced access to support services. This program is made possible by a start-up grant from the Nicholson Foundation.
“Based on the changing dynamics in health care of providing better care at lower costs, this new model will allow us to improve treatment by designing care around the unique needs of our patients,” said John P. Sheridan, Jr., President and Chief Executive Officer of The Cooper Health System.
Jeffrey C. Brenner, MD, is the Medical Director of the Cooper Advanced Care Center and Kathleen Stillo, MBA, serves as Executive Director. Dr. Brenner, a renowned proponent of health care reform, is founder of the Camden Coalition and a national consultant about new approaches to reduce hospital readmissions and provide better, personalized care to patients at reduced costs. Most recently, Dr. Brenner was named one of only 24 recipients of the prestigious MacArthur Foundation Fellowships in recognition of his work.
One of the unique offerings of this program is group visits. Patients with similar diagnoses, such as diabetes, will meet together and learn best practices of care together. In addition to the group time, each patient then has individual time with physicians and clinicians. Each of the group sessions will have a maximum of 20 patients per group with the total session lasting one and a half hours—45 minutes for the group discussion with 45 minutes for individualized meetings. Studies have shown that group visits can be an effective tool in helping patients manage their chronic illnesses.
“Coordinated care simply makes sense as we draw upon the basics of medicine we started with centuries ago,” said Dr. Brenner. “If we can eliminate some of the confusion among the patients’ care and provide a better, more coordinated effort, the patients will get a better grasp of their own health conditions and be able to identify problems sooner with fewer emergency care visits.”
“This is all about delivering care,” said Stillo. “There are so many components in figuring out how to give better care, keep our patients healthier and make it less expensive. We want to make this a very efficient business model and expand into the rest of the system.”
The Cooper Advanced Care Center is located at Three Cooper Plaza in Camden, conveniently located around the corner from the Walter Rand Transportation Center. To schedule an appointment, call 856.342.2439.