OCEAN CITY – Dr. Christine Winn says service, healing and education are the targets of efforts using the combined strengths of Cooper University Health Care and and its Cape Regional branch.
Winn, a senior vice president and chief regional officer with Cooper University Health Care, was the keynote speaker at the November meeting of the Cape May County Chamber of Commerce, which was held at the Port-o-Call Hotel in Ocean City on Thursday, Nov. 21.
She took a novel approach to Q&A, asking for questions to begin her presentation on the partnership between Cooper and the former Cape Regional Medical Center.
The first question was about when maternity services would return to Cape May County’s only hospital. Winn said it was a difficult decision to eliminate maternity services in September 2022 and, she said, frankly she could not say when they would return.
“There is a lot that goes into maternity services,” Winn said, listing the departments involved in safe health care for mothers.
She said there have been about seven babies delivered in the emergency department since 2022. She praised the nursing staff, which has developed a protocol for handling births in a hospital where there is no obstetrics department. She said the protocol is now being replicated in other hospitals.
Winn said the hospital is developing a range of women’s services, including those for women over 65, who she said make up 35% of the population of the county.
She also answered a question about bringing in the services and benefits of the MD Anderson Cancer Center at Cooper, suggesting that the services would reach patients in Cape May County.
Winn said the partnership between the two hospitals began with consideration of merging the strengths of the two facilities. She said Cooper has been able to build and enhance a healthier community along with the existing services.
She said there are 200 beds available to serve the community, and ambulatory care throughout the county. She talked about joint replacement care, saying, “Joint replacements are now done on an outpatient basis,” meaning the length of stay has been reduced to zero days.
Winn referred to the previous creation of the health system that became Cape Regional Physicians Associates, which between 2010 and 2020 focused on outpatient services development. In 2020, the hospitals, she said, were dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic, which led to people not wanting to go to a hospital, and testing and surgeries not being performed.
Cooper, she said, led the effort in coordinating care for all of South Jersey during this time, evaluating best practices for medical care. She credited Cooper-Cape Regional Chief Executive Officer Joanne Carrocino for “bonding” with the CEO at Cooper-Camden.
As a result, as of July 1, there are over 13,000 team members and over 1,000 physicians in the Cooper health-care system, and 130 ambulatory care centers in eight counties.
Winn also spoke about developing a medical school in Cape May County, and creating a place where medical students would want to stay in the community. This, she said, is a tremendous undertaking: The application to create a medical school is 8,000 pages.
She said one of the things she was most proud of was being able to recruit medical professionals and specialists from Camden, adding that she wants to bring more specialists to Cape May County.
In Cape May County one of Cooper’s goals, she said, was to put people first.
“I don’t want to do things that are just Camden – I want to focus on the needs of Cape May County and Cape May County residents,” she said. “I want to make sure you know that Cooper coming here is not a bad thing.”
Contact the reporter, Christopher South, at csouth@cmcherald.com or 609-886-8600, ext. 128.
