3 min read July 2023 — In an interview with Invest, Bill Arnold, CEO of Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital, an RWJBarnabas Health facility, talked about the hospital’s contributions to New Brunswick and the rest of the state. Arnold praised the hospital’s frontline staff and outlined his vision for the future of healthcare in New Jersey. Recently, RWJBarnabas Health has made a major commitment to increase resources and has developed a robust growth and expansion plan.
What has been Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital’s contribution to New Brunswick and the rest of the state?
Patients come to New Brunswick from across the state, relying on our city for a wide range of healthcare services. As the flagship hospital of Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey, and with our deep partnership with Rutgers University and Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital (RWJUH) is a crucial resource for New Jersey residents and a leader in advancing state‐of‐the‐art care.
As one of only three state-designated Level 1 Trauma Centers and a Level 2 Pediatric Trauma Center, RWJUH supports residents across the state with its ground‐breaking approaches to emergency medicine. Our medical centers of excellence are led by Rutgers RWJMS physician faculty and our Magnet-recognized nursing staff, all of whom play a crucial role in making New Brunswick a healthcare destination.
We are constantly expanding, innovating, and refining to better serve everyone who walks through our doors. Here at RWJUH, we have over $1 billion in capital projects in the works. In New Brunswick, construction on HELIX has recently begun, and will include a new medical school facility with cutting-edge laboratories that will foster research, treatment, and business breakthroughs – not to mention support thousands of new jobs right here in New Jersey.
RWJUH is woven into the very fabric of New Brunswick starting in 1884 when New Brunswick City Hospital opened its doors. We have worked closely with Mayor James Cahill, Chris Paladino at the New Brunswick Development Corporation, our elected officials, community partners, and fellow healthcare providers to create a vision for this city. Our mission is to advance quality of life for each and every member of our community – whether that’s through increasing access to new technologies and bench-to-bedside research or collaborating on social impact initiatives that meet our communities needs outside of the hospital walls.
What are some of the biggest challenges your team faces?
Our biggest challenge right now is capacity. We address a broad range of high-acuity care needs that are not available in the community hospital setting, and are a designated transfer center for stroke, trauma, cardiovascular services and more. With increase in demand for these services and as we address post-pandemic staffing shortages, we are operating at a high census on most days. Our goal is always to maximize efficiency while maintaining our quaternary services. We are building state-of-the-art facilities to help address some of these capacity issues, streamlining processes for our physicians and staff and ensuring that patients receive the care they need when they need it.
How are you working with stakeholders in the area to secure skilled personnel?
Our partnership with the university and the medical school is tremendously helpful in creating a pipeline of new doctors and future leaders from programs across Rutgers RBHS. RBHS Chancellor Brian Strom and RWJMS Dean Amy Murtha both serve on the RWJUH Board of Directors and our Chief Nursing Officer works closely with Dean Flynn of the Rutgers Nursing School. Through these partnerships, RWJUH is enabling high quality education for the next generation of physicians, nurses, advanced practice providers, hospital administrators, social workers and many other health professionals who may also be hired into our system.
We have also worked closely with city leaders and stakeholders to establish New Brunswick and RWJUH as a healthcare destination. Our county’s leaders – from Commissioner Director Ron Rios to Administrator John Pulomena – have created something special in Middlesex. As CEO, I often speak with physicians, nurses, and medical experts who are at the top of their fields. I interview candidates for research and clinical positions who come from the best medical centers in the country, and they are constantly awed by our quality of care, ability to innovate, and the shared vision we have for New Brunswick. That reputation for excellence and collaboration goes a long way in securing new personnel.
Are there trends in the industry that you are seeing?
We see significant promise within the growth of AI such as wearable technologies and the shift towards home health monitoring. Within our innovation center, we are working to find the best ways to utilize these technologies and other new inventions.
For example, we have recently launched a program in partnership with healthcare technology leader, Biofourmis, to remotely monitor heart failure patients to help intervene with therapies before these patients require an emergency trip to the hospital. We are currently in pilot, but early feedback is good and we expect to fully offer the program to patients who qualify by the end of the year.
During the pandemic, RWJBarnabas Health rapidly increased its telehealth capabilities and initiated a transitions of care program allowing COVID-19 patients to be monitored at home with oxygen. Those lessons learned have allowed us to prioritize telemedicine and home health monitoring more broadly across service lines – including primary care and cardiovascular care. For patients who fit the criteria, remote patient monitoring allows the care team to better track key data points and saves patients from long waits in the hospital.
What have been the leading contributions to the hospital’s success?
I believe it is all about putting together the right team. A hospital’s impact is only as strong as its people – the physicians, nurses, and staff who fuel day-to-day operations and shape patient experience. When you look at any successful hospital, you’ll find the faculty and frontline staff working together to make things possible.
At RWJUH, we have an exceptionally-committed board, talented and experienced administration, and among the most highly-skilled staff in the nation. Our frontline staff can address the most complex conditions and have experience in interventions that might be seen once-in-a-career in the community hospital setting. Over the last three years, they have worked through incredibly difficult circumstances, going above and beyond to serve their patients with courage and compassion. Our faculty and residents from Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School is a true differentiator. They are training the next generation on the latest interventions, as well as conducting important research and innovation to prevent and predict serious illness in our communities.
Our strength as care providers comes from the collaboration and integration of all those groups. From Dean Amy Murtha over at the medical school to the leadership at CINJ, we are a large, multi-faceted community that is committed to working together to advance medicine and improve patient care and community health.
That collaboration isn’t limited to our own system or network. We often partner with elected officials and neighboring health systems to care for the community and provide the highest level of support possible – whether that’s co-creating programs to serve people experiencing homelessness or establishing food banks to ensure access to healthy food or ensure access to the COVID-19 vaccine to non-English speaking community members. RWJUH has long worked with organizations like Saint Peter’s University Hospital and New Brunswick law enforcement to protect the vulnerable and uplift those most in need in New Brunswick. Our mission is bigger than any one person or hospital, and our success depends on how well we work together.
What role does the Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital Foundation play in your community efforts?
Since 1981, the Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital Foundation has played a critical key role in fundraising to support our expansion projects and community endeavors. Through the Foundation’s efforts, RWJUH has received millions of dollars in support of landmark initiatives and clinical services. One such initiative is the Jack and Sheryl Morris Cancer Center, which was a donation given to our health system by our hospital chairman. This will be the first and only freestanding cancer hospital in New Jersey, and will include 96 inpatient beds and provide comprehensive inpatient and outpatient cancer services, support services and research in partnership with Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey, the state’s only National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center. Many notable charitable organizations have also shown strong support for the medical center over the years including: The Bristol Myers Squibb Foundation, which has made major contributions to the children’s hospital and has been a longtime supporter; The Marion and Norman Tanzman Foundation, which has contributed to help improve services within the medical center; the Johnson & Johnson executives; the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation; and the Johnson Family, who have been strongly supportive of us through the years, providing substantial philanthropic investments.
What is your outlook for the New Brunswick health system and immediate priorities?
RWJUH is a special place. Our culture of collaboration, investment in the community, and access to the best and brightest medical minds sets us apart as an academic center of excellence. As our system continues to grow and establish itself as one of the country’s premier academic health systems, I believe even more patients will come to us from even greater distances for specialized services. Through RWJMS, our capacity for translational research means that we are able to bring new ideas and treatments from the laboratories directly to our patients’ bedsides, improving their health outcomes and quality of life. Research is core of where we need to be and I believe that spirit of innovation will continue bringing us to the next level.
For more information, visit:
https://www.rwjbh.org/rwj-university-hospital-new-brunswick/
