COURT HOUSE – When Cooper University Hospital merged operations with Cape Regional Medical Center, it brought along more than a new name.

It also brought along another level of management from Cooper University Hospital-Camden, including Senior Vice President and Chief Regional Officer Christine Winn.

Winn is eager to speak about the hospital she has been with for 11 years, and sat down with the Herald to explain some of the features Cooper is bringing to Cape May County.

Winn has a Ph.D. in hospital administration. She played a key role in the development of Ambulatory Operations and the MD Anderson Cancer Center at Cooper.

For the long term, Winn sees Cooper University Hospital-Cape Regional as becoming a training hospital. To accomplish this, the hospital will focus on recruiting staff – doctors, nurses, lab techs – who are qualified to teach the next generation of medical professionals.

She said the goal is to bring in doctors who are excited about teaching that next generation. The application process to become a training hospital takes about 18 to 24 months, she said.

Winn said bringing physicians and other team members into the community – or from the community – is part of the development plan.

“Being able to grow your own allows you to draw from the community,” she said.

She said the goal is to bring 42 new physicians into the community in the next three to five years. There is a higher likelihood that doctors, once they settle here, will want to stay in the community, she said.

Winn said hospital management has already succeeded in adding five doctors to the staff, filling slots in surgery, gynecology and gastroenterology. She said that, initially, the focus would be on improving and expanding primary care with Cooper-Cape Regional.

“Primary care is the foundation for everything,” she said.

Winn credited Cape Regional CEO Joanne Carrocino with expanding the hospital’s network and said the hospital will continue to expand specialty care, including training clinics.

She said Cooper-Cape Regional has developed a relationship with Atlantic Medical Imaging to be the leading imaging service in Cape May County.

Along with this could be the return of obstetrics, which closed two years ago at Cape Regional. Winn said she knows it was a difficult decision to make but understands the need for a high level of care, including in the area of anesthesiology.

“At this point it is safer not to have this service,” she said.

At the same time, she said the emergency room RNs developed a protocol for handling cases when there is no obstetrician or obstetrics department. She said that protocol has become a national standard.

“It went from a difficult situation to providing the next set of standards available,” she said.

Cooper-Cape Regional is also working on a medical management program with Miracles Fitness in Rio Grande. There are 40 different classes, with some run by exercise physiologists with a medical focus, including Zumba and personal training classes.

“We are constantly asking ourselves, ‘What can we bring here that might work?’” Winn said.

She said they are importing experiences that worked in Camden, including in particular programs for the homeless and for veterans. She said they would be leveraging programs that worked elsewhere when developing programs here.

Winn said Cooper-Cape Regional has a deep commitment to the community, adding that she has seen an incredible dedication among team members who feel like they are caring for members of their family.

Before joining Cooper, Winn was the executive director of Aria Health Torresdale Campus, where she was responsible for hospital operations and campus growth and development.

During her 25-year career in health care, she served in numerous leadership positions at Paoli Hospital/Main Line Health in Pennsylvania, Bridgeport Hospital/Yale New Haven Health in Connecticut, and at Pennsylvania Hospital/University of Pennsylvania Health System.

Throughout her tenures, she led teams that created new services for patients and the community, including new outpatient cancer services at Bridgeport Hospital, a new emergency department at Torresdale and the Level II trauma program at Paoli Hospital.

A graduate of Furman University, she received a master’s in organizational dynamics from the University of Pennsylvania, a master’s in hospital administration from the University of South Carolina and her doctor of philosophy in health services from Walden University,

Contact the reporter, Christopher South, at csouth@cmcherald.com or 609-886-8600, ext. 128.