Newsmakers

Nurses Honored During 2019 Nursing Excellence Awards

Philadelphia resident Sean Deiter, BSN, RN, was named Nurse of the Year yesterday evening at the 2019 Nursing Excellence Awards hosted by Cooper University Health Care and The Cooper Foundation. [See all photos.]

Deiter is a registered nurse in Cooper’s Intensive Care Unit. In addition to Nurse of the Year, he was also presented with the William and Eileen Archer Award for Excellence in Critical Care Nursing. Read more.

Heart Valve Device Offers New Options for Patients

Until recently, high-risk heart patients with a severe form of leaky mitral valve disorder, called mitral regurgitation, and who were deemed too frail or sick to undergo open heart surgery had few treatment choices.

Cooper University Health Care now offers a new treatment option for these patients with the FDA-approved MitraClip device. A medical team including Janah Aji, MD, FACC, Sajjad A. Read more.

Results of study to be published in Intensive Care Medicine

If patients experiencing a life-threatening medical emergency perceive their health care provider as compassionate, are they at a reduced risk for subsequently developing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)? This was something researchers at Cooper University Health Care and Cooper Medical School of Rowan University explored as part of a study about the effects of compassion in health care. Read more.

Michael E. Chansky, MD, FACEP, FAAEM, Chairman of the Department of Emergency Medicine of Cooper University Health Care and Professor at Cooper Medical School of Rowan University, was recently honored with the 2019 Leonard Tow Humanism in Medicine Award from the Cooper Medical School of Rowan University (CMSRU) Chapter of the Gold Humanism Honor Society (GHHS).

The Leonard Tow Humanism in Medicine Awards recognizes exemplars of clinical excellence and outstanding compassion in their delivery of care. Read more.

New Jersey Department of Health Commissioner Dr. Shereef Elnahal joined Cooper University Health Care Co-President Kevin O’Dowd, Cooper Chairman George E. Norcross III, and Congressman Donald Norcross on Monday, April 8, 2019, as part of a series of hospital visits to highlight the positive impacts of Governor Phil Murphy’s signing of the $15 minimum wage law.

In November 2018, Cooper University Health Care became the first health care system in New Jersey to commit to raising its minimum wage to $15 an hour for full-time, part-time, and per-diem employees. Read more.

First Commercial U.S. Case Performed at Cooper Last Week

Joseph V. Lombardi, MD, FACS, head, Division of Vascular and Endovascular Surgery and director of the Cooper Aortic Center at Cooper University Health Care, served as global principal investigator for a new device to treat aortic dissection, a potentially fatal medical condition if left untreated.

Cook Medical’s Zenith Dissection Endovascular System, approved for use by the FDA earlier this year, is a type of flexible stent graft specifically used to treat patients who have a tear (dissection) in the inside lining of the descending thoracic aorta, the large artery in the chest. Read more.

The Cooper Foundation today announced a new community initiative, PowerUp, to address food insecurity for Camden children at KIPP Cooper Norcross Academy and the Center for Family Services (CFFS) Head Start program at KIPP. PowerUp will also support workforce development, job-readiness training, and financial literacy programs for families in the Cooper Plaza and Lanning Square neighborhoods in Camden.

“Promoting good health is more than physical well-being and PowerUp is designed to remove the stress of food insecurity and provide critical resources to help families improve their emotional, physical, and financial health,” said Susan Bass Levin, President and CEO of The Cooper Foundation. Read more.