Lourdes Center for Public Health
Lourdes Health System, serving Camden, Trenton and Newark

Our Lady of Lourdes Medical Center
1600 Haddon Avenue
Camden, NJ 08103-3117

Lourdes Medical Center of Burlington County
218 Sunset Road
Willingboro, NJ 08046

Telephone: (856) 580-6378
(856) 869-3038

Contact:

Stanton B. Miller, MD, MPH
Medical Director, Lourdes Health System
Director, Lourdes Center for Public Health
E-mail: millers@lourdesnet.org

Jane Weber, Public Health Coordinator
Email: weberja@che.org

Victoria Santana, Coordinator – Special Projects
Email: santanav@che.org

Website: http://www.lourdesnet.org/services/pub-health.php

Organization Description and Mission

Recognizing the important role that public health and population-based methodologies can play in effective health promotion and disease prevention, the Lourdes Center for Public Health was established in 2006 to engage students in public health studies and activities in the communities served by Lourdes Health System’s New Jersey hospitals in Camden and Burlington counties.

The Lourdes Center for Public Health works collaboratively with academic and community partners to identify critical public health challenges, design and implement research, and develop intervention strategies for urban and vulnerable populations. 

The Center provides mentorship to students from a variety of academic institutions including both undergraduate and graduate programs. Over the past three years in conjunction with academic curricula and advising, students have completed more than twenty projects, which have ranged from community based needs assessments to providing homeless medical outreach to studying disparities in food access in Camden and its impact on health. 

The Center’s objective is to utilize results and recommendations from student research to affect change in the Lourdes Health System and its care-delivery system. Student research outcomes confer immediate benefits to communities and help to reduce health care disparities, while providing students with the opportunity to gain valuable experience in public health research and health-care settings.

The Lourdes Health System is a preeminent regional health system known for providing the most sophisticated levels of care. For over five decades, Lourdes has been committed to enhancing the health and well being of southern New Jersey residents and particularly devoted to caring for those most in need. The health system is a Catholic health system sponsored by the Franciscan Sisters of Allegany, NY, who came to Camden in 1950 to open Our Lady of Lourdes Medical Center which would be a transforming and healing presence in the community. Today, the Lourdes Health System has grown to a two hospital system, Our Lady of Lourdes in Camden, and the Lourdes Medical Center of Burlington County.

The Lourdes Health System is “dedicated to its tradition of serving all with reverence, compassion and integrity in a simple, joyful and hospitable manner.

We strive for excellence in our stewardship to our patients, their families, the community and each other by promoting a culture that embraces diversity.

We commit to being a transforming, healing presence within the diverse communities in which we live and serve.

We create collaborative, inclusive, caring communities who provide a full range of quality medical and wholistic health services.

We promote healthy communities and assure access to all, especially those most in need.”

The Lourdes Health System is a member of Catholic Health East (www.che.org), a multi-institutional, Catholic health system co-sponsored by 13 religious congregations and consisting of 33 acute care hospitals along the East Coast.  Lourdes has become a statewide health system offering services throughout New Jersey. 

Clinical Centers of Excellence at Our Lady of Lourdes Medical Center and Lourdes Medical Center Burlington County include: Bariatric Surgery, Cardiac Services, Dialysis, Organ Transplantation, Rehabilitation Center, Women and Children's Services, Cancer Care and Behavioral Health Services.  Other services include Acute Pain Management, Community Outreach, Emergency Services, Joint Replacement Center, a top-rated School of Nursing,  Nursing Research Council, and Nurse Anesthesia Program. Lourdes Medical Center of Burlington County also sponsors many services for the United States military at nearby Fort Dix and McGuire Air Force Base.

Community and Population Served by the Organization

The Lourdes Health System and Catholic Health East – New Jersey are dedicated to serving the underserved, the uninsured, and the disadvantaged in the New Jersey area, including Camden, Trenton, and Newark. They do not deny care for any person who arrives at their hospital. Urban health is a major focus of research.  

Research Questions

COMMUNITY NEEDS ASSESSMENT

• Lourdes is currently in the process of conducting a community needs assessment in the county of Burlington, a society of considerable socioeconomic diversity.  While Moorestown in Burlington County has been ranked as one of the top 10 places to live in the U.S. and has a high per capita income, other areas throughout the county including the west side near the Delaware river are quite poor with several immigrant communities and homeless groups of veterans often living in tents in the woods. This disparate population creates a challenge for Lourdes Health System, who seeks to provide care to all. Students involved in the community needs assessment would do strategic planning for Lourdes, designing a series of focused surveys to distribute to the disadvantaged community of Burlington.  Students will go into communities, conduct surveys, analyze the data, and pinpoint healthcare needs.  Such needs might include better dental care, better vision care, chronic disease management, hypertension care, diabetes prevention and care, nutrition education, or exercise. 

TELEMEDICINE

• Lourdes is interested in the use of modern technology in diabetes management and is collaborating with Georgetown University School of Medicine to conduct a study of diabetes telemedicine efficacy in Camden. Diabetics are known to develop fewer complications if their levels of glucose and insulin are strictly controlled, especially through daily monitoring by primary care physicians; however, strict control is a challenge in areas with large poor and vulnerable populations.  Few people can buy medicine or equipment to manage their diabetes.  Students interested in this project will help in the implementation of the Georgetown study and the logistics in providing this type of technologic care to the inner city population.

VIOLENCE PREVENTION AND HEALTHCARE

• The Lourdes Center for Public Health is interested in a study of violence as an issue of public health. How should hospitals and other health organizations be compensated for injury prevention measures (including educational measures)? In the interest of highlighting the value of prevention, students could develop billing codes for prevention measures. In particular, what would be the value of violence and trauma (violent or non-violent) prevention programs? What is the economic burden of violence on a city’s healthcare system? How much of the healthcare budget does treatment for the victims of violence account for?

FOOD ACCESS AND NUTRITION EDUCATION

• Lourdes is very interested in the issues of nutrition and and the cultural and society issues of food supply and variety in the inner city. The rate of diabetes in the immigrant populations are skyrocketing, which begs many questions. Is this trend because immigrants have trouble finding the kinds of foods to which they are accustomed and are instead turning to cheese steaks and pizza, for instance? Is the solution to stock food with cultural sensitivity? What other options are there? The Lourdes Center for Public Health is currently supporting the study of food deserts in New Jersey in conjunction with Professor Harris-Lacewell’s Fall 2008 class on The Politics of American Racial Health Disparities and is interested in greater focused research on the issues of access and nutrition education and its benefits in these populations.

HEALTHCARE FOR THE UNINSURED

• One aspect of the Lourdes Health System mission is to provide care for the uninsured population, including illegal immigrants. When illegal immigrants come for service, they are ineligible for coverage by Charity Care funds and instead, the hospital must pay the bill. How would the establishment of universal care in the U.S. affect this mission? How do you address the issue of care for illegal immigrants and where should they fall in the area of coverage?
• Because Charity Care funds were recently slashed by state officials, Lourdes will lose $4 million normally used to care for uninsured patients.  How can Lourdes continue to care for uninsured patients who cannot pay? 

HEALTHCARE ECONOMICS

• As some small and medium-sized healthcare centers have done before, Lourdes has considered shutting down its OB-GYN and pediatrics units to cut costs; these are the least profitable units.  How can they stay in business?  What are the ethical implications?  What are the needs of the communities served by these units and how will they be affected by a shutdown? 

LANGUAGE AND CULTURE BARRIERS TO HEALTHCARE

• Many patients who see doctors at Lourdes in Camden cannot speak English.  With interpreters charging $50/hour, what can Lourdes do to improve healthcare for various cultural groups without astronomically increasing the budget?  Students could compare Camden to California or other places where language and culture may create an obstacle to healthcare quality and access.
• The Vietnamese population of southern New Jersey is quickly growing, yet little change to services has been made to accommodate this increase.  A student could do a healthcare needs assessment of the Vietnamese and Asian community.  Particularly important are the geriatric needs of older patients who speak no English but have special needs that current infrastructure does not support. Another possible population requiring similar study includes the Portuguese/Brazilian immigrant population in Burlington County.

ACCESS TO MEDICATIONS

• The poor rarely have the necessary access to medications.  Often, they do not fill their prescriptions because they are unable to pay.  Although Wal-Mart has instituted a program to provide medications at a reduced price for the indigent population, few people enough to pay even the subsidized price.  What can Lourdes do to improve access to medication for this population?

RESEARCH OPTIONS

The research options for with the Lourdes Center for Public Health are endless. If you have an interest in urban public health, urban health policy, bioethics, or anything you think would be relevant to this organization, please feel free to contact Lourdes Center for Public Health with your ideas. We look forward to hearing them! Princeton students interested in CBLI coursework with this organization should contact Princeton's Community-based Learning Initiative Office.

Continue searching profiles in alphabetical order.

Continue searching profiles by area of interest.

Continue searching profiles by geographic location.