Our Core Business: Superior Higher Education and Healthcare

We educate Camden’s best and brightest, while also providing a range of higher education opportunities for people of all ages and skill levels. Our programs serve those wishing to enter the job market, upgrade skills, earn degrees or prepare for professional certifications. Today, in total, more than 2,000 of our students are Camden city residents. Further, new pipelines to higher education are helping Camden youth and adults get ahead. Camden County College's "Gateway" program, which offers college-prep courses to adults in community and church settings, has grown five-fold in recent years – from 20 students per semester to 125. The college's new Adult Basic Skills offerings, as well as expanded allied health programs, train a workforce that can access the city’s higher-wage job growth. At the same time, Rowan University’s intensive ESL program for students helps some of the city's newer residents.

The growing numbers of Camden-based students make a positive imprint on the city in so many ways - from Rutgers-Camden law students who run community clinics on domestic violence, senior citizen and juvenile justice issues, to UMDNJ medical students who staff free health clinics through their Health Outreach Program. When it comes to healthcare, our institutions do it all: from community-based primary care to the highest levels of specialty care in the region. We care for the sick regardless of ability to pay, and treat nearly the entire 80,000 resident population of Camden each year.

Camden residents benefit from having sophisticated institutions as the city's "family" doctor. "When problems arise, city emergency departments take care of Camden's population 24/7. Cooper, Lourdes and Virtua together see nearly 40,000 of the city's residents just in our emergency departments annually, and CAMcare sees thousands of primary care patients in the city. Across our facilities, new capital expenditures are improving the level of services. Cooper University Hospital’s expansion project will nearly triple the size of the emergency department to address overcrowding. Our Lady of Lourdes’ new pavilion, opened in 2005, nearly doubled the size of the emergency department and features an expansion of their Camden based school of nursing.

Collectively, the Lourdes and Cooper expansions also provide more private patient rooms, operating suites, and outpatient treatment facilities. Outreach programs through churches, site-based clinics for the uninsured, and screenings to diagnose diabetes, hypertension, asthma and more, are part of the collective effort to improve health and quality of life in Camden. For example, Cooper's Health Awareness Ministry offers screenings and health education at churches, while Virtua’s health-oriented annual Community Day at its Camden facility offers a host of critical health and education services. Lourdes’ Project H.O.P.E. offers care to the medically underserved of Camden.

Further, the healthcare providers of tomorrow are trained in Camden, through medical, dental, nursing and allied health education programs, including a new Licensed Practical Nursing program at Camden County College's city campus.