Hackensack University Medical Center, a 775-bed teaching and research hospital and the largest provider of inpatient and outpatient services in New Jersey, has signed a hospital medicine affiliation with Cogent Healthcare.
Through the agreement, Brentwood, Tenn.-based Cogent will provide comprehensive hospitalist services to HUMC's inpatient population. Cogent will structure a coordinated care team, implement data driven processes and offer ongoing training.
"Patient satisfaction is driven in part by exceptional continuity of care," said Peter Gross, MD, HUMC's chief medical officer. "Selecting a hospital medicine partner that understands the importance of care coordination in the patient experience was a key requirement for HUMC."
HUMC is home to hundreds of specialized programs and services and one of its region's most modern healthcare campuses. It is known for using the principles of Total Quality Management, which include performance improvement methods and The Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award business criteria, to evaluate and improve the processes that contribute to the delivery of patient care.
"Providing quality care is the number one, non-negotiable value to both the community physicians who admit their patients to HUMC and to the administration at the medical center," said Mory Menacker, DO, a member of the Department of Internal Medicine and the chairperson of the Physician Satisfaction Committee. "This affiliation aims to create an environment for physicians to practice the best medicine and for patients to receive the best care, through strong alignment between the community and the hospital."