Healthcare teams 'wrapped around' patients

The overhaul at Cooper University Hospital begins in the waiting room.

As recently as last summer, this office was in rough shape. Carpet was patched with mismatched swatches; there were walls that time forgot.

"That a wall could be stained with marks of people’s heads, it appeared as if people were sitting there, shadows of them," says Sophia Kolosowsky, who has worked here since 1995. Look around now and you see modern wood furniture, bright colors, tasteful photos of long ago Camden on the walls instead of shadows.

"We don’t need to have that inner-city ghetto look for our patients here," she says. "We need to make them feel comfortable that we care about them. And this speaks volumes.

When you strip away all the bells and whistles at the Cooper Advanced Care Center, you see a massive effort to make primary and specialty care for the poorest and sickest patients – who for years have cost hospitals money – as easy to get as just showing up at the ER, says the clinic's executive director, Kathy Stillo.

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