Following an immersive trip through its history, AtlantiCare laid out ambitious plans for the near future.  

Within Jim Whelan Boardwalk Hall April 10, President and CEO Michael Charlton detailed Vision 2030. The wide-ranging plan includes establishing a medical school and homeownership program in addition to integrating AI and other innovative technologies, physical expansion, increasing regional life expectancy and growing to become a $2 billion organization. 

To achieve its goals, the 125-year-old health care system is enlisting partners, including Cleveland Clinic Cancer Institute, Drexel University College of Medicine, Oracle Health and Global Neurosciences Institute. Ultimately, Vision 2030 expands the scope of what Atlantic City can mean as a destination. 

“Our intention in Vision 2030 is to invest over $1 million in communities we serve in Atlantic City. We’re committed to building an academic campus and a substantial mixed-use development that will resolve those and create economic advantage for those underserved,” Charlton told the room the gathering in Atlantic City.

A medical city

Charlton said the plan puts AtlantiCare‘s main campus growth “on steroids” to transform it into a “medical city” with thousands of jobs.

“If we can reimagine the campus with new facilities and we bring together innovative technologies and care concepts, we transform how health care is being delivered. This expansion will include a new, state-of-the-art Emergency Department … the new, state-of-the-art Medical Imaging Center, the new cardiac tower for our award-winning cardiac program, our new post-acute rehabilitation center and partnership with Select Medical … a systems operations command center, ambulatory surgery center, and our broad aspiration to build a children’s hospital and a behavioral health campus,” Charlton said. “Our new private patient floors will feature state-of-the-art technology, so patients have personalized care plans, information at their fingertips and medical resources that they need desperately.”

Characterizing the organization as “truly remarkable,” Charlton said AtlantiCare owes it to the 1 million people in its service area to stay that way. “The future demands that we are nothing short of remarkable.” 

Vision 2030 is staked on four pillars, each with measurable goals as defined by AtlantiCare: 

• Serving Community 

  • Reduce food insecurity for patients by 6% 
  • Reduce unsheltered homelessness by 20% 
  • Expand life expectancy by five years 
  • Increase annual fundraising for the AtlantiCare Foundation by 20% year over year 

• Workforce Excellence 

  • Establish a medical school in New Jersey – via a clinical partnership with Drexel – to diversify and strengthen the talent pipeline 
  • Already underway this year, AtlantiCare YOUniversity is a clinical career program to nurture local talent 
  • Equip team members with best-in-class learning and development 

• Accelerating Transformation — AtlantiCare powered by Oracle Health 

  • Leverage real-time data to increase efficiency and improve care delivery 
  • Implement technology that transforms care and delivers frictionless experiences 
  • Utilize genomics and AI to drive personalized medicine 
  • Enable safe and seamless movement of information across an interconnected ecosystem 

• Growing Market Share 

  • Grow market share in the region by 5% 
  • Expand to a $2 billion organization 

AtlantiCare also plans to expand its market share with enhanced services, increased access and excellence in key service lines, such as behavioral health, cardiology, the expanded emergency department and orthopedics. 

Working together

The Cleveland Clinic and GNI tie-ups also advance the mission. 

The affiliation with the cancer care provider will streamline access for South Jersey residents while offering the latest treatments.

AtlantiCare’s clinical partnership with Global Neurosciences Institute will bring novel treatments and therapies to the system, a range of neurosurgical services and functional neurosurgical procedures as well as treatments for diseases such as Alzheimer’s and other cognitive disorders, Parkinson’s and movement disorders, epilepsy, multiple sclerosis and more. 

GNI founder, President and CEO Dr. Erol Veznedaroglu was among the speakers who joined Charlton on stage throughout the approximately hour-long presentation.  

“This is one of the most, the best kept secrets,” he said, echoing a theme of excellence in care and service touched on by others taking the stage. “Certainly we always knew about, AtlantiCare is a great hospital, great system, but we’re just beginning to see the quality of nursing, of physician groups, the care of our patients.” 

Other speakers included AtlantiCare board of trustees Chair David Goddard and Dr. Hetty Carraway, vice chair, Strategy and Enterprise Development, director of the leukemia program and professor of medicine at Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine.  

New school

State Sen. Vince Polistina, R-2nd District; Dr. Charles Cairns, Walter H. And Leonore Annenberg Dean, Drexel University College of Medicine, senior vice president, Medical Affairs, Drexel University; and Joe Bertolino, president, Stockton University joined Charlton to discuss the proposed medical school.

Polistina spoke to the regional opportunity Vision 2030 invokes, “where we have opportunities to potentially educate people here, train people here, and then hopefully have people stay here.”

Drexel is the country’s largest private medical school; 1 out of every 75 physicians gets their training from the Philadelphia university. Cairns said he believes Atlantic City appealed to Drexel for the same reasons it’s established itself in other communities, in Pennsylvania, California and elsewhere.

“And that is to really take on the challenges of those who are either underserved by health care or underrepresented in the innovation that is health care – with new discoveries, new technologies, new care models,” he explained. “And the opportunity to bring medical education, medical training, medical research to those communities.”

As another new leader at a regional institution and Atlantic City anchor, Bertolino said he sees Stockton and AtlantiCare as interconnected partners. “Clearly we need more physicians … but we also need growth in our nurses and in our social workers, and that is where Stockton comes in,” he said. “This provides us with an opportunity to grow those programs and meet the needs of the community.”

Tech talk

AtlantiCare’s partnership with Oracle advances its digital transformation. Mike Sicilia, executive vice president, Oracle Global Industries, stressed that arguably the most important facet of the arrangement pertains to cybersecurity. But, that doesn’t mean there aren’t more “fun” features, too.

The health care system is one of the first named Innovation Partners for Oracle’s new generative AI-based Oracle Clinical Digital Assistant. “Our goal is to help make AtlantiCare the model for more connected and effective care,” Sicilia said.

Based in Egg Harbor Township, AtlantiCare’s team of more than 6,500 serves the community in over 100 locations in Atlantic, Burlington, Camden, Cape May and Ocean counties – for now.

“It seems so far away, but six years, is going to go by in an instant,” Charlton said, concluding the first looks at Vision 2030. “What I hope you saw today, what I hope you felt today is that AtlantiCare is done following health care trends. And we are going to transform and set the trends moving forward.”

Signifying the magnitude of the announcement, the Vision 2030 event kicked off with a video message from Gov. Phil Murphy: