Cooper University Hospital

Cooper University Hospital is a provider of comprehensive health services, medical education and clinical research in southern New Jersey and the Delaware Valley. The hospital is a clinical campus of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey – Robert Wood Johnson Medical School at Camden and offers training programs for medical students, residents, fellows, nurses and allied health professionals in a variety of specialties.

The mission of Cooper University Hospital is to advance the health status of the region’s population through the provision of appropriate health and medical care. To accomplish this mission, Cooper University Hospital serves as a principal site for the education of physicians, provides programs of allied and community health education and offers highly complex health care resources to assist in the educational process.

Coupled with its educational goals, Cooper University Hospital offers a broad agenda in the field of research. Cooper physicians are involved in ongoing research and development as they keep abreast of changing modalities of medical care. As an academic medical center, Cooper continuously attempts to improve patient’s quality of life through the research efforts of its medical staff.

Cooper University Hospital serves as Southern New Jersey’s major tertiary-care referral hospital for specialized services. These regional services include, among others: Level I Southern New Jersey Regional Trauma Center; the Cancer Institute of New Jersey at Cooper University Hospital; the Cooper Heart Institute, the Cooper Bone & Joint Institute, Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, Pediatric Hematology / Oncology Laboratory; Regional Cleft Palate Program; Cardiac Diagnostic Center and Comprehensive Breast Care Center.

History of Cooper
The origins of Cooper University Hospital can be traced to 1887, when a prominent Quaker family named Cooper opened a hospital to provide medical care for the indigent population of Camden. Richard M. Cooper, M.D., four of his brothers and sisters and one nephew donated money and land for the hospital to be built between Sixth and Seventh Streets, from Mickle to Benson Streets. Though the four-story, stone building was completed in 1877, the original 30-bed hospital stood empty for 10 years until enough money was available to open for patients in August 1887.

In the first 100 years of the hospital's existence, additions to the original building and the construction of freestanding structures on the surrounding five acres of land further anchored the Cooper Hospital campus in Camden. Inside these buildings medicine advanced at a rapid pace, eventually turning the small community hospital into a 540-bed regional tertiary care center that cared for the population's most critically ill patients. Hospital officials and leading physicians often engaged in heated debates on the merits of moving to another location, but the answer was always the same: Cooper Hospital should stay in Camden.

Over time, Cooper Hospital has not only remained true to its original mission but has grown to meet the medical challenges of a geographically dispersed patient population and a rapidly changing health care environment. Before Cooper celebrated its first 100 years of service, professional hospital managers had replaced well-intentioned Board of Trustees in managing hospitals, while government regulations affected such physician prerogatives as determining patient length of stay and what physicians would be reimbursed for specific procedures. Cooper Hospital eventually became The Cooper Health System and the clinical campus of the University of Medicine and Dentistry / Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. The development of the medical school affiliation advanced Cooper as the major teaching hospital in South Jersey.

When Cooper celebrated its Centennial Anniversary in 1987, no one could have predicted the dramatic changes that would take place in health care over the next 10 years. Dominated by health insurers who pay for patient services, hospitals everywhere have aligned with health care systems in order to negotiate favorable payments from payors and develop the medical expertise to draw large numbers of patients.

To compete in this managed care environment, Cooper Hospital/University Medical Center (now Cooper University Hospital) became one component of an integrated health care delivery system called The Cooper Health System in 1996. The Cooper name is now synonymous with a full range of health system services - including prevention, primary care, specialty ambulatory services, all levels of inpatient care and subacute care. While Cooper continues to invest in its Camden facility, multi-specialty physician offices are now also strategically located throughout the southern New Jersey region.