Cooper University Health Care (Cooper) is a leading academic health system with a single hospital based in Camden, NJ, located directly across the river from Philadelphia, PA. Cooper is the only Level 1 Trauma Center in southern New Jersey and affiliated with Cooper Medical School of Rowan University. Cooper has a more than 130-year history in the City of Camden and, as a safety net hospital is playing a leadership role in Camden’s revitalization.
Cooper has revenues of more than $1.6 billion. The health system has continued to grow and thrive by increasing its ambulatory care offerings while maintaining commitment to their original mission in the City of Camden.
As Bill Cogliano, Cooper’s director of strategic planning and business development, explained, Cooper is focused on “maintaining that mission and commitment to Camden – still making sure we’re a high acuity academic medical center – but also supporting our future through very purposeful, strategic decision making to grow our ambulatory centers.”
Partnering With Buxton
In 2014, Cooper partnered with Buxton to gain insights to guide their ambulatory network expansion. Buxton provided custom analysis and on-demand tools the Cooper team could use to support planning decisions, including consumer profiles based on both demographic and lifestyle data, site score models for a variety of service lines and facility types, and healthcare and consumer insights in Buxton’s web-based SCOUT application.
Analytics 101: Site scores are derived from models that use consumer profiles, demand metrics, supply metrics, and other variables known to influence performance for a specific service line or facility type. They can be used to quickly compare different sites or service lines at the same site.
As part of its strategic planning for expanding beyond the City of Camden, Cooper’s team used Buxton’s insights and analytics to explore the viability of new markets and make data-driven assessments about the best locations.“Buxton definitely has helped us gain insights that we wouldn’t have been able to know on our own in terms of volumes, growth, or site scoring,” claimed Cogliano.
The second primary way Cooper has applied Buxton’s analytics is to compare service lines within a geography. Sometimes the service line site scores are used to find good geographic areas for specific service lines, and at other times they are used to optimize the service line mix at a specific facility.
Analytics in Action: Opening a New Multi-Specialty Center
A good example of how Cooper has applied Buxton’s insights to support service line optimization decisions is the Cooper Specialty Care Center at Cherry Hill, which opened in April 2020. In January 2019, the Cooper planning team was charged with preparing both qualitative and quantitative-based recommendations on service line mix. Buxton’s insights, particularly the service line site scores, played a helpful role in guiding the planning team and stakeholders to a final decision.
“The site scores are definitely the input that we find the most valuable,” remarked Cogliano. “I think the reason why we find it the most valuable is that there’s a lot of science and data behind the scenes that go into that one number…. I like that it’s simple. It’s really easy to understand. For the most part, a lot of our senior leaders are familiar with it, and for those who aren’t, I think the learning curve is easy to get oriented to what we’re trying to accomplish, score, and rank.”
“Buxton definitely has helped us gain insights that we wouldn’t have been able to know on our own in terms of volumes, growth, or site scoring.”
Buxton’s Impact
While Buxton is not the sole data source used for Cooper’s market planning decisions, it is a key factor. Cogliano estimates that the planning team has used Buxton in almost every major ambulatory opening, closure, and relocation decision since 2015.
The Cooper team has also been impressed with Buxton’s customer service and process. Cooper’s planning department works with several vendors for data and consulting, and Buxton stands out.
“The customer service is excellent,” said Cogliano, who also noted that the Buxton team is extremely accessible. “The process for how we work with the Buxton team is really smooth and very efficient. The whole approach of working collaboratively from start to finish is something we value very much. Starting with the business question, helping pull data, being able to summarize everything at the end, and having the input from the Buxton team has been something that we find a lot of value in.”
Cooper is also happy to see continuous improvement in Buxton’s products based on the feedback that they provide.
“We know that Buxton is invested and listening to our customer needs,” summarized Cogliano. “We’re very happy with our relationship over the years and look forward to continuing that.”