Clara Maass 150th Anniversary Book

CLARA MAASS MEDICAL CENTER 1 5 0 Y E A R S O F C A R E A N D C O M PA S S I O N

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CLARA MAASS MEDICAL CENTER 1 5 0 Y E A R S O F C A R E A N D C O M PA S S I O N 1869-2019

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PRESIDENT AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER RWJBARNABAS HEALTH

Barry H. Ostrowsky PRESIDENT AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER CLARA MAASS MEDICAL CENTER

Mary Ellen Clyne, PhD VICE PRESIDENT, STRATEGIC MARKETING, NORTHERN REGION AND CREATIVE SERVICES, RWJBARNABAS HEALTH

Dennis Wilson, Jr. DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC RELATIONS AND MARKETING, CLARA MAASS MEDICAL CENTER

Stacie J. Newton

EDITORIAL AND ART, WAINSCOT MEDIA

Lee Lusardi Connor, Editor Kijoo Kim, Creative Director Beth Weinhouse, Writer Alanna Giannantonio, Assistant Art Director PHOTOGRAPHY

Daniel Della Piazza, Coordinator, Visual Communications, RWJBarnabas Health PRINTED BY

LSC Communications

1 Clara Maass Drive, Belleville, NJ 07109 | 973.450.2000 | www.rwjbh.org/claramaass

Copyright � 2019 by RWJBarnabas Health

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FOREWORD

I

’m incredibly proud to present this book commemorating Clara Maass Medical Center’s 150th anniversary. I’m even more proud to be President and Chief Executive Officer of this wonderful institution.

We began as Newark German Hospital, a hospital built with funds raised by the community, with the door open to anybody—no matter their race, color, creed or ability to pay. It’s a legacy we continue to honor in every area: in our excellent staff and medical care; our family feeling that encompasses employees, volunteers, auxiliaries, patients and community members; our employee diversity, which reflects the community we serve; and our commitment to taking our care beyond the medical center walls to the communities around us.

This book is dedicated to all the hardworking people who have made Clara Maass Medical Center what it is over the past 150 years. It’s through the support of our hospital board and foundation, the medical staff and the hospital staff, all working together that we’ve been recognized with so many local and national awards for patient care and safety. Nothing described in these pages could have been done without our people, and I’m filled with appreciation for them every day.

This book is also dedicated to the patients and their families who have trusted us to care for them. We strive every day to give the most excellent and humane care possible and to never let them down.

I believe we’re very clearly fulfilling what our institution’s mission was always intended to be. That’s very significant to me. And that’s a message that our namesake, Clara Louise Maass, would appreciate.

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MARY ELLEN CLYNE, PhD PRESIDENT AND CEO

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CLARA MAASS MEDICAL CENTER

150 YEARS OF CARE AND COMPASSION toc

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Birth of a Hospital

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A Nurse for All Time

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Years of Growth: 1900-1946

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Moving to Nanny Goat Hill: 1947-1957

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TABLE OF

CONTENTS

Mastering Modernization: 1958-1993

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A New Era of Excellence: 1994-2019

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An Ever-Expanding Campus

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Medical Advances and Cutting-Edge Technology

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Serving a Growing Community

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A Close, Caring Family: The Clara Maass Culture

102

A Vision for the Future

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Leadership Through the Years

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“This institution is organized on broad principles, admitting cheerfully the afflicted of every class, nationality and creed.”

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Newark German Hospital, circa 1888, at Bank, Wallace and Newton Streets.

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1

BIRTH OF A

HOSPITAL

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f anything, Newark grew almost too fast in the 19th century.

It was bustling, but it was wretched, too. Yeast clouds from the breweries mingled with the rising odor of filth in the streets, and a haphazard chorus of different languages, insistent tradesmen’s calls and bewildered babies’ cries echoed up and down the alleys.

But that hardly kept the Irish, German and other European immigrants from squeezing into any rooming house or small dwelling they could find. Employers needed them to turn out the products—leather goods and hats, paints and luggage, jewelry and machine tools and celluloid— that were fast making Newark one of America’s leading industrial cities.

Incorporated as a city in 1836, Newark had 17,290 people in 1840.

By the century’s end the population was 246,070. As one writer put it, its “packed warrens could not cope with illness.” Waves of cholera, malaria and typhoid flooded the cramped bedrooms. And the Newark of 1853, wrote the leading newspaper, “has more than 40 churches, and no hospital.”

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REVOLUTIONARIES COME TO NEWARK

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The Irish potato famine of 1846 had devastating effects on much of Europe. By the thousands, farmers trekked to the seaports, where they could buy passage on a sailing vessel for the equivalent of $20.

Germans were among these immigrants, but not everyone made the voyage to escape starvation.

Some came to avoid imprisonment, even execution, after participating in the wave of revolution that swept Europe in 1848. Three Germans who had been activists in protest of the Austrian Foreign Minister Metternich wound up in Newark, destined to have primary roles in founding a hospital there: • Dr. Louis Greiner, a lawyer, was marked for execution by the Prussians but escaped from jail and sailed to the West.

• Dr. Fridolin Ill was punished for his part in the revolt by loss of his medical practice. He too got away, settled in Newark and built a new practice.

• The Rev. Frederick August Lehlbach had drawn a prison term for his dissent but managed to flee

his homeland and found a new pulpit at Newark’s Evangelical Protestant Church.

No matter their reason for coming to America, German immigrants tended to stick together. On a hill west of Newark’s High Street, they occupied a two-mile-square section.

There they maintained their own schools, churches, saloons and restaurants, social halls, and fitness clubs (known as turnvereins).

A number of German physicians joined Dr. Ill in Newark, bringing with them remarkable medical experience.

Practitioners in Germany had made lengthy strides by the mid-19th century. Educated at homeland universities, Newark’s German physicians certainly learned about these men’s accomplishments. They heard also about England’s Joseph Lister, the father of antiseptic surgery.

And their training in the scientific method would prepare them to embrace the X-ray after its discovery

by Wilhelm Roentgen on November 8, 1895. Their education and expertise prepared them well for the needs for healthcare in Newark.

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Newark’s two-mile-square German section is depicted here in an 1876 engraving, A writer from Harper’s Magazine reported that “German habits and German customs appear on every side.”

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Newark German Hospital, which opened in 1870, pictured after its expansion in 1888. The $24,000 renovation provided private rooms for patients and a separate entrance to a ward where children with contagious diseases could be treated in isolation.

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On January 19, 1868, a formal declaration was made to create Newark German Hospital.

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NEWARK GERMAN HOSPITAL BEGINS Newark had no hospital, but that lack represented no problem for the well-to-do. If they were sick, they were treated at home or in New York. But the poor could end up in the hopelessly bleak City Alms House, beside the senile and insane. There, two patients to a bed was the practice.

With the Civil War, the need grew greater. Soon trainloads of wounded men were rumbling into Newark. When homes and hotels could no longer hold them, the 1,000-capacity Centre Street Military Hospital was opened in 1862, and women volunteers came into their own. However, at the war’s end in 1865, city officials refused to bid for the military facility.

So private forces stepped in. Episcopalians opened Saint Barnabas Hospital that year; a year later, the Catholics’ Saint Michael’s began treating the sick. The Germans felt that they too should have a hospital, and in 1866 they formed their own hospital association, with

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Pastor Lehlbach as president.

On January 19, 1868, a formal declaration was made to create Newark German Hospital. It happened at a glorious affair attended by people from 62 German lodges and featuring the voices of singing societies and feats of agility by turnverein gymnasts.

On February 13, 1868, the State Legislature granted a charter for the hospital. The first president was that exile from Europe’s revolutions, lawyer Louis Greiner. That spring the Germans netted $7,575 toward building the hospital at an eight-day fair.

The next step was to find a location. At the northwest end of the German enclave, there was open ground at Bank, Wallace and Newton Streets. On April 6, 1869, the purchasers concluded a deal for a 100-by-200-foot lot.

The closing price: $5,750.

Now the sponsors could focus on bricks and mortar. Their plan envisaged an institution for up to 60 patients. The 42-by-53-

foot structure would stand three stories high above a basement.

Estimated construction cost: $13,000, which later proved to be $5,000 short of actual costs.

German societies and citizens pledged $12,000 more.

The cornerstone was laid September 14, 1869. With bands playing, gaily costumed women on floats, and dignitaries marching, a parade proceeded from Military Park to the ceremony’s site.

Beer sales and other fundraising brought in $2,832.

On December 26, 1870, board president Christian Miller and his associates dedicated the new facility with a lavish ceremony and building tour. Among the speakers that afternoon was one of the institution’s founders, Pastor Lehlbach, who declared it to be “organized on broad principles, admitting cheerfully the afflicted of every class, nationality and creed.”

The next day, December 27, 1870, Newark German Hospital opened its doors to patients.

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INNOVATIVE FROM THE START

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Dr. Fridolin Ill and his 11 colleagues on the first medical staff conversed, like the nurses, mainly in German. They were probably as medically skilled as any in America. That was fortuitous, as they faced every ailment that factory work and poverty could produce, from skull fractures and broken bones to malaria, typhoid, tuberculosis and rheumatism. Newark German’s physicians were the city’s first to insist on antiseptic measures in surgery. And in their operating room was performed the first successful bowel resection

in the U.S., as well as Newark’s first cesarean section.

Decades before health insurance appeared, the Germans announced their own hospitalization plan. Two local associations were told that if they paid 10 cents a week per member, the hospital would treat covered individuals when necessary.

Participants received an admission card, and by the early 1900s the charge for this card had been reduced to 25 cents a month. The program ran for years.

BELOW, a 1901 photo of Newark German Hospital’s Board of Directors. In the front row, at far left, is brewer Gottfried Krueger, whose palatial mansion was sometimes used for the hospital’s essential fundraising events. AT RIGHT, a private room at Newark German in 1888, available to paying patients.

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MONEY SPENT, MONEY RAISED

From its earliest days, the hospital relied on the generosity and fundraising of its community. An 1878 festival (admission: 15 cents) raised $1,806.09.

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By the first annual meeting in 1871, the hospital on the hill could report that although theirs was a charity institution, 196 of the first year’s 303 patients who were able to pay had met their bills in full. That helped bring collections that year to $10,282.99, against expenditures of $8,455.77.

However, in subsequent years, the hospital’s leadership marched dangerously close to the edge of financial disaster. In fact, Newark German posted a loss in half the years between 1890 and 1900. A footnote to a financial report in English and German reminded readers: “A mortgage for $10,000 rests on the Hospital.”

As in its earliest days, the hospital relied on the generosity and fundraising of its community. Time and again, German singing societies rallied for fundraising benefits. An 1878 festival (admission: 15 cents) raised $1,860.09; that formula inspired an almost annual event.

An early supporter was Anna Ottendorfer, wife of the publisher of the New York newspaper Staatszeitung. On May 3, 1881, she announced plans to pay $2,000 to clear up the hospital’s remaining mortgage. Three years later she died, leaving $5,000 for Newark German.

That sum nourished the cash balance and started the medical staff thinking about expansion. And by November 1888, the institution had a new wing, built for $24,000 (which required a $15,000 mortgage).

Now, for the first time, Newark German had private rooms, as well as several new entrances. These enabled it to open a children’s ward in which youngsters with contagious diseases could be isolated. It was Newark’s first isolation site.

The hospital announced that the public’s first chance to inspect the new wing, on Thanksgiving, was to be “a day of giving.” In addition to receiving gifts of wines, lard and other supplies, the institution raised $6,473.83.

Over the decades since, the hospital has repeatedly expanded or renovated its facilities. That process resumed soon after the new wing opened in 1888: The board recognized it must provide more fully for the nurses it needed to train. That was a major step.

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Young Clara Louise Maass, photographed around the time she volunteered to nurse soldiers in the Spanish-American War.

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One 1893 applicant for Newark German’s new Training School for Nurses was clearly underage, but she was so earnest that the hospital could not turn her down.

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A NURSE FOR

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ewark German needed nurses. Embracing the latest strict standards for antiseptic surgery, its physicians demanded cleanliness and wanted women educated in caring for the sick. If such people could not be found, Newark German should train its own. And the doctors had definite ideas on what a nursing school should be. It would provide two years of instruction and training. In the second year, students would go out on private duty, caring for the well-to-do in their homes. The basic pay: $5 a month.

By March 8, 1892, instruction had begun. Students used two Newark German rooms for lectures and demonstrations. Training was rigorous. Out of the first class of six, only one, Carrie Frank, completed the course, graduating in 1894.

The students’ presence earned the attention of Christina Trefz, whose husband owned the Trefz brewery four blocks away. She offered an idea: If someone bought the land and built a nursing school building on it, would the hospital name the structure after the donor? By all means!

Approval in hand, Trefz went about the task, and in November 1893 the Training School for Nurses was dedicated. Its new home, Trefz Hall, had a lecture room, bedrooms for 14 students, baths, and a living room where students could entertain guests.

The hospital could now advertise for candidates. They should be between 20 and 40, educated, and “of good character and with proof of physical ability.” One of those who responded was clearly underage. But she was so earnest that the hospital could not turn her down.

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A YOUNG WOMAN FROM EAST ORANGE The oldest of nine children, Clara Louise Maass was born June 28, 1876. Even in grade school, she worked as a mother’s helper. She finished three grades at East Orange High School before her family’s need obliged her to take a full-time, sevenday job at the Newark Orphan Asylum for $10 a month, half of which went to her parents. She was 15.

Two years later she heard of the new nursing school at Newark German. Summoning her courage, she went for an interview with the school’s stern director, Anna Seber. There was no hiding Clara’s age, but as they talked in German, Seber saw a maturity she liked, and Clara was accepted. On October 12, 1895, she and three other trainees received their trim, black-bordered caps. Joining the hospital’s small complement of nurses, Clara won quick acceptance from her associates and the medical staff. She did her job so well that in 1898, before her 22nd birthday, she was named head nurse.

Even in grade school, Clara Louise Maass worked as a mother’s helper. Her family’s need obliged her to leave high school to take a full-time, seven-day job at the Newark Orphan Asylum. She was 15.

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ABOVE, standing at right, Clara Maass poses for a photo with Newark German colleagues. AT RIGHT, the Training School Class of 1895, with Clara in the center. She was named head nurse three years later.

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ABOVE, THIRD FROM RIGHT, Clara was first assigned to a field hospital in Jacksonville, Florida, during the Spanish-American War. Later, she was sent to the Philippines.

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THE IMPACT OF A WAR The Spanish-American War of 1898 lasted only four months. In a sense it was America’s debut on the international stage. It also resulted in a greater understanding of a savage disease, yellow fever. Ultimately, a safe vaccine was developed. Newark German’s own Clara Louise Maass became one of a select few to turn laboratory guesswork into grim reality.

When the U.S. battleship

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Maine was sunk in a Cuban harbor, presumably by a submerged mine, America’s “young inflammables,” as historians have called them, demanded action—and in April 1898 they got it: War with Spain was on. In July, the city of Santiago fell to U.S. forces; fighting ended, and an armistice was signed in August.

That left thousands of American soldiers in staging areas in Florida

and elsewhere.

Clara Maass decided to volunteer for nursing in the war zone, and the Army assigned her to Jacksonville.

But soon she was sent to the Philippines to apply her nursing skills at military installations being ravaged by diseases, including yellow fever. It was exhausting labor, and eventually she became sick herself. The Army sent her home to recuperate.

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THE GREATEST CHALLENGE

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Yellow fever was devastating: An 1878 epidemic had swept through eight states, and out of 74,000 cases, 15,932 people had died. Decades earlier, a doctor had speculated that a mosquito carried this disease, but the U.S. Army was unsure.

Either way, in 1900 Cuba was in the grip of the disease, and the occupying American military had to take steps. Major Walter Reed was appointed head of a commission charged with fighting the malady.

The chief sanitary officer on the scene, Major William C. Gorgas, sought to turn Havana into a “sanitary, spotless town” and thus end the fever’s spread.

He put out a call for nurses to care for patients already afflicted.

Recovered from her illness,

Clara Maass heard that call. She contacted Major Gorgas in Cuba.

On October 14, 1900, he wired back: “Come at once.”

Arriving in Cuba, Clara learned of efforts to find a way to immunize people against the disease. Doctors would expose people to mosquitoes that seemed to be carriers; possibly a vaccine could be made from the blood of these exposed individuals. Dr. Juan Guiteras, in charge of the project, emphasized to Clara that it posed “considerable risk.” Volunteers would be paid $100, and $200 if they actually got the disease.

Clara, confident that her work with so many yellow fever patients had made her immune, volunteered for the experiment.

The doctors resisted; she insisted

quietly and firmly. Finally, the medical staff accepted her request.

On five different days from March to June 1901, Clara was bitten by 10 Stegomyia mosquitoes, regarded as likely carriers. The results were negative. But she persisted. At 9 a.m. on August 14, she was bitten by two mosquitoes; they had already caused at least one case of the disease. In four days, the fever had taken hold: She woke up shaking. And on August 24, she died in anguish, as so many had before her eyes.

With her death, the tests ended. Clara had been the first woman and only American among the 19 volunteers; she was the only woman and the only nurse to die in the research.

To find a vaccine, doctors planned to expose people to mosquitoes that seemed to be carriers of yellow fever. Clara Maass was the first woman and only American to volunteer.

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“No soldier in the late war,” declared The New York Times in tribute, “placed his life in peril for better reasons than those which prompted this faithful nurse to risk hers.”

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ABOVE, Clara Maass’s nursing school diploma and a 1952 oil portrait, painted in the year that the hospital was renamed Clara Maass Memorial Hospital. OPPOSITE PAGE, a letter Clara sent home from the war.

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Clara was buried with military honors in Havana, Cuba, but the U.S. Army returned her body to Fairmount Cemetery in Newark in 1902. Later, a simple Army stone was replaced with a pink granite stone and bronze plaque.

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THE AFTERMATH Clara was buried in Cuba. “No soldier in the late war,” declared The New York Times in tribute, “placed his life in peril for better reasons than those which prompted this faithful nurse to risk hers.”

The following year, Clara’s coffin was brought back to the U.S. and, with military honors, reinterred in Newark’s Fairmount Cemetery. The hospital had other preoccupations in the ensuing years, including World War I (after which Newark German was renamed Newark Memorial Hospital). In 1927, its nursing superintendent, Leopoldine Guinther, spotted a newspaper article recalling Clara’s burial and began tracing her story. She went to Cuba twice for research and raised the money for a new headstone at Clara’s neglected gravesite in New Jersey. The epitaph ends: “Greater love hath no man than this.”

Clara’s sacrifice turned out to be of great consequence.

Research was to show that 20 mosquito species carried yellow fever. Work on an effective vaccine continued, and by World War II a safe substance was available. As an outcome, American servicemen were spared the terrible consequences of the disease. And in 1952, the hospital was renamed Clara Maass Memorial Hospital.

Clara Louise Maass set an inspiring standard—for her profession, for medical research, for humanity and for the hospital bearing her name. Truly, she was an American heroine.

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The sacrifice made by Clara Louise Maass turned out to be of great consequence. Words engraved on her memorial stone tell the story: “Greater love hath no man than this.”

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AT CENTER, Miss Wilhelmina L. Kobbeloer, seated in the front row, joined the hospital in 1903 as superintendent of both Newark German and its training school for nurses, She kept a firm hand on the facilities for 19 years.

A 1901 hospital directors’ report noted a constant need for “taking up collections and making appeals for contributions.”

Nonetheless, hospital leadership had the goal of becoming “an institution second to none of its kind in the country.”

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YEARS OF GROWTH:

1900–1946

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“T

here is less trouble in founding an institution,” said a hospital directors’ report in July 1901, “than in maintaining the same.” Indeed, financial challenges would continue to bedevil the hospital for most of the next four and a half decades. And during that period, a special problem would face this institution so thoroughly German in its origins: On the world scene, Germans would become America’s sworn enemies—twice.

That 1901 report noted a constant need for “taking up collections and making appeals for contributions” and said hospital directors were often asked: “What has been done with all the monies that have been collected?”

They took 28 pages to explain the hospital’s good works, and expressed the goal of becoming “an institution second to none of its kind in the country.”

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THE PEOPLE OF NEWARK GERMAN

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In the 19th century’s last years, records show that German-born citizens accounted for less than a majority of patients admitted—barely.

But in other respects this remained a German hospital. Key names of 1901 tell that story. The medical staff included Drs. Richard Dieffenbach William J. Roeber, W.F. Seidler and E. Tutschulte. And there were the board’s officers: Elias Berla, president, John Otto, A.A. Sippel, Henry Erbacher and Robert Hertzog, treasurer. Among the other seven directors, all with German names, was a prominent Newark brewer, Gottfried Krueger.

President Berla’s 1901 report described the upcoming presentation of Christmas gifts to patients and employees as “a genuine German festival.” The report also listed hospital contributors, including 233 “members” who had given $5 each annually. Paying $500 a year, Gottfried Krueger led a short list of commercial donors. And among 32 other persons and societies credited for their donations was Germany’s Kaiser Wilhelm II, who sent marks worth $235.

Soon, trouble was brewing on the Kaiser’s continent. The coming of World War I would affect Newark German, especially after America’s

declaration of war against Germany in April 1917. In early 1918, several months after the first U.S. soldiers had died in France, the hospital board’s president, August Goertz, expressed pride in the “idealism and energy of men of German descent” but realized that a name change was inevitable. In 1918 the hospital began being called Newark Memorial; the change was legalized on September 24, 1919. “We thought it advisable not to designate a particular nationality,” said President Goertz, conceding that “another reason for the change of name was the pressure of public opinion.”

After the war’s end, physicians of non-German origin began joining the staff. Following his U.S. Navy service, Dr. William D. Crecca, an ItalianAmerican, came aboard July 1, 1919.

The next year, urologist Clarence R. O’Crowley was added, and then came Drs. Charles Rich and Anthony Ambrose, both of Italian extraction.

However, the senior men remained German.

“They were stern disciplinarians; we had a respect for them that was almost a fear,” Dr. Crecca recalled, noting that nevertheless “we knew they meant it when they said, ‘Call on us at any time, day or night.’” There was, he said, “a powerful esprit de corps.”

Senior leaders were “stern disciplinarians,” one doctor recalled.

Nevertheless, he said, “We knew they meant it when they said, ‘Call on us at any time, day or night.’”

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In 1918, Newark German trustees decided to change the institution’s name to Newark Memorial Hospital. “We thought it advisable not to designate a particular nationality,” said Board President August Goertz.

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By 1930, the institution was operating at a loss.

Reaching for any possible savings, the hospital urged people to use the stairs: Every elevator trip cost two cents!

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Between 1916 and 1930, the hospital was enlarged or renovated four times.

With demand for maternity rooms increasing, the hospital bought and converted Trefz Hall (ABOVE, AT LEFT, center building) into a 27-bed unit for obstetrical cases. ABOVE, AT RIGHT, the maternity wing and laundry of the main hospital. OPPOSITE PAGE, a new residence for nurses, with a private room for each nurse, was constructed to address the nursing shortage.

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IMPROVING FOR A NEW ERA The institution’s administrators knew that it had to stay competitive. Between 1916 and 1930, it was enlarged or renovated four times.

In 1916, a modernization plan called for a children’s pavilion, new quarters for nurses and a pathology laboratory. To raise funds, brewer Krueger hosted a benefit that brought in $20,276.94. But the construction would cost twice the $60,000 forecast by board president Goertz. The building went forward anyway, thanks to hefty mortgages.

With demand increasing for maternity space, Newark Memorial bought a next-door city playground and converted a building there into a nurses’ home. It then remodeled Trefz Hall as a maternity complex of 10 private rooms and a ward with 17 beds. This project was completed in 1921.

In 1923, the hospital completed a four-story addition for its surgeons, providing three modern operating rooms and further space for the nurses, sterilizing and dining. The spate of building had cost Newark

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Memorial $120,000. Yet lush years in the 1920s found the institution in the black more often than not: In the best year, 1927, receipts exceeded expenses by $125,000.

Then the financial outlook began to darken, with losses in 1928 and 1929. To aggravate matters, nurses were in short supply. Responding, the board voted in July 1929 to erect a four-story nurses’ residence.

The ultimate cost of $203,000 exceeded the $150,000 estimate, but a “sinking fund” established

by Krueger in 1906 helped cushion the blow.

After the stock market crash of October 1929, the Depression descended on the nation. But work on the new home for RNs pushed ahead, and in 1930 the structure opened. Nurses got 76 bedrooms, eight baths, kitchens on each floor, classrooms, and a sitting room.

However, by November 1930, the figures revealed a loss for the year of $31,482. Reaching for any possible savings, the hospital urged people to use the stairs: Every elevator trip cost two cents!

Supervisor of nurses Claonia

Corriden recalled: “We had little or nothing. We sterilized our own instruments and syringes. We borrowed gloves from the orderly room. We had only four bed pans for 25 patients.”

In the Depression’s grimmest years, Newark Memorial took on more and more debt, and by 1936 the entire institution was mortgaged.

The country had barely recovered from hard times before it was thrown into World War II with Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, with Germany again a foe. The war meant an added strain: personnel started leaving for military duty. Dr. William Greifinger joined the staff in 1939, but was called into service mid-1941 as an Army officer. Interns left, so the remaining doctors taught the nurses how to transfuse and hook up the intravenous apparatus.

One such nurse was Nancy Fiorellino Masiello, who graduated from the hospital’s school of nursing in 1943, joined the staff and within months, at 21, was head nurse of a 42-bed unit.

“I had an aide and myself on the floor,” Masiello recalled. “I would tell her, ‘You start at one end and I will start at the other and we will meet in the middle.’

You did everything. They taught us to do intravenous, put Levin tubes down into a patient’s stomach, and put in catheters for urological patients. The medical staff was very, very supportive.

They were a wonderful group. It was more like a family.”

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During the early post-World War II years, the hospital served citizens of Newark tirelessly­—but the facilities were showing their age. By 1946, hospital trustees were discussing relocation.

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A PLAN FOR SALVATION

The National Lutheran Council sent experts to check out Newark Memorial and found it “a hospital of good standing and recognized standards.” By 1946, it had become Lutheran Memorial Hospital of Newark.

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Despite the family feeling, Newark Memorial was being badly buffeted.

It raised its room rates $1 a day, but managers could not make income catch up to expenses. In 1943 the loss was $21,728; the next year it was $28,878.

At the board’s meeting of October 9, 1944, the seven lay members and four physicians wondered why expenses were up $5,000 a month over 1943. And there was, they decided “a lack of sufficient revenue,” principally because the private rooms were achieving only “a small percentage of occupancy.” Small obstetric rooms, hot in summertime, were losing out to competing hospitals with updated facilities. In other words, more investment would be needed to stem the tide of red ink.

To find these funds, the head of obstetrics, Dr. Robert Jonitz, suggested at a medical staff meeting that the hospital might affiliate with “some church organization, such as the Lutherans.” He added that “a considerable number” of German descendants still belonged to that denomination.

The thought took root. On December 11, board president Carl Schumacher named a committee to hold a “preliminary conference” with Lutheran church representatives. Soon the Rev. Arthur Herbert, pastor of Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in East Orange, brought to Newark Memorial’s board a positive response from a meeting of Lutheran ministers. Essentially, the Lutherans would be “acquiring” the Newark facility.

Wisely, the National Lutheran Council sent in experts to check out the institution. They could see that it had debts, but Newark Memorial was, as one Lutheran said, “a hospital of good standing and of recognized standards.” So the national church gave its blessing, and drafting began on a constitution for the new entity. The document was accepted by all parties on April 22, 1945.

That summer, Lutherans picked up the burden of raising money for the financially troubled hospital. Asked to contribute $1 to $100 a year, church members reached for their checkbooks, easing the hospital’s burdens appreciably.

It was time to change the hospital’s name—again. As the directors and members of Newark Memorial agreed, it would be known as Lutheran Memorial Hospital of Newark. The state made it official March 13, 1946, and on April 1 the active members of Lutheran Memorial held their first meeting. A challenge still awaited: part of the hospital was three-quarters of a century old. It was beginning to show its age.

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ABOVE, Christmas Seals were introduced in 1945 as a way to raise funds for the hospital.

BELOW, the U.S. Postal Service issued a stamp in honor of Clara Maass in 1976.

In the late 1940s, hospital administrators faced a growing operating deficit, and the physical plant was decaying almost before their eyes. The idea of relocating gained momentum.

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MOVING TO NANNY GOAT HILL:

1947–1957

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ev. Arthur Herbert, founder and president of the Lutheran Hospital Association, threw himself into the Newark hospital’s salvation. And he embraced a kindred cause: having nurse Clara Maass honored on a postage stamp. “Here we have a martyr and no one has even heard of her,” he exclaimed. Christmas Seals featuring the hospital were begun in 1945; the U.S. postage stamp was ultimately issued in 1976.

The balance sheet presented a bigger challenge. Late in 1946, the operating deficit amounted to $16,543; three years later it was $38,580. And hospital administrators faced another problem: The physical plant was decaying almost before their eyes.

Lutheran Memorial went through several superintendents right after World War II, when stability would have been preferable. But that changed when Albin H. Oberg became executive director in January 1952 at age 28, New Jersey’s youngest hospital chief executive. He would remain for 31 years.

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ABOVE, dilapidated furnishings and a patient room with a single light were typical of how run-down the hospital had become. AT RIGHT, John Kidde of Walter Kidde & Co. receives a check for $100,000 from Harry Specht of the Belleville Foundation to begin fundraising.

OPPOSITE PAGE, from left, Dr. Cetrulo; Albin Oberg, Executive Director; Harry A. Trotter, Board President; and Dr. William Crecca.

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AN OUTDATED HOSPITAL Lutheran Memorial, now in six structures on 1.74 acres, had served Newark well. But aging buildings in the 118-bed facility meant higher operating costs.

“Generally, the rooms in the main building were more like hotel rooms,” remembered Dr. William Greifinger. “Some even had fireplaces. There was no air conditioning, so the operating room was terribly hot in summer. Nurses would fan the surgeons and wipe the sweat off their brows.”

Oberg recalled the “drab, dirty yellow” paint and the cafeteria pipe with 32 clamps on it to contain leaks. He also recalled having to carry patients bodily if the single

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elevator broke down, and wheeling deceased patients across the courtyard. The only parking was on the street, in a deteriorating neighborhood.

The buildings were “entirely inadequate,” trustees agreed in late 1948. On February 15, 1951, fire broke out in Trefz Hall, the third in a year. A neighborhood boy was believed responsible.

What could be done? Closing was unacceptable. Combining with one of Newark’s 15 other hospitals had no appeal. Rebuilding would be costly, and there was scant evidence that the funds could be raised. The other option was to relocate. That option won out.

At a special board meeting in December 1948, Dr. Gerald Cetrulo told trustees he and two colleagues had spotted a new location: “Nanny Goat Hill” on the Newark-Belleville border.

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The remaining $400,000 needed was pledged by trustees and construction begin in the spring of 1955. On September 30, 1956, a thousand guests gathered at the new site for the dedication.

AN AREA WITH A NEED In fall 1946, a committee of trustees had met with representatives of Belleville, Nutley and Bloomfield, who thought their area of 97,000 people needed a 200-to-300-bed facility costing about $2 million.

The committee decided it would be easier to raise the needed funds in the three towns than in Newark.

Financial support from area industry was assured, and citizens planned to contribute. Soon the search for sites began.

The move gained a supporter in John F. Kidde, president of Belleville’s Walter Kidde & Company.

Meanwhile, three Lutheran Memorial doctors had been quietly discussing relocation for years. At a special board meeting on December 9, 1948, Dr. Gerald I. Cetrulo told trustees he and two colleagues, Drs. William D. Crecca and Raphael E. Remondelli, had spotted a location: “Nanny Goat Hill” on the Newark-

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Belleville border.

The hospital’s medical staff promised to purchase the land if the board would proceed with plans. On 13 acres, the concept proposed, a new 200-bed facility would be built.

A fundraising organization was retained in 1949 to aim for $2.8 million. Kidde led the campaign, but initially it didn’t even come close. His candid verdict: “This is a miserable failure.”

Prospects improved in 1952, when the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC), a U.S. government agency, began lending to hospitals. Lutheran Memorial applied for a loan in June, the month it was renamed Clara Maass Memorial Hospital. The loan was approved, but projections now indicated that $4 million would be required. On Christmas Day 1954, the Fannie E. Rippel Foundation announced a $1 million grant to the

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hospital, contingent on its raising the added funds. The foundation had been set up by Julius Rippel in memory of his wife. His father, Gottfried Rippel, had been one of Newark German’s backers in 1868.

The foundation would help the hospital on several more occasions.

Kidde and his associates sought better terms than the RFC was offering. Five days before the federal loan offer was to expire, they visited the Massachusetts Mutual Insurance Company, made a pitch—and a loan was approved. The remaining $400,000 needed was pledged by trustees, and construction began in spring 1955. On September 30, 1956, a thousand guests gathered for the the dedication, with Dr. Cetrulo an appropriate emcee. He had toured the Nanny Goat Hill neighborhood, negotiating in Italian with owners of the lots the hospital would need.

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ABOVE, Clara Maass Memorial Hospital as it looked in its new home on Nanny Goat Hill at One Franklin Avenue, Belleville. OPPOSITE PAGE, proud staff, administration and supporters on opening day.

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MOVING DAY

On opening day, a woman showed up in labor before the doors were unlocked.

At 2:45, the hospital’s first birth occurred. The baby was named Clara Maass Ramos NuÑes.

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On Sunday morning, August 18, 1957, Oberg led a small army of 160 civil defense volunteers, Boy Scouts and Explorer Scouts, auxiliary police, air raid wardens, and physicians and nurses from several Newark hospitals. Their mission: to transfer 42 patients from the old hospital three and a half miles to the new facility in Belleville.

Seven ambulances and six station wagons, traveling in three convoys, moved north at half-hour intervals. Twenty-four patients were carried on stretchers; one, aged 73, had to be moved with an oxygen mask in place. Auxiliary police and air raid wardens guarded critical intersections.

The move went off without a hitch— almost. But when admitting clerk Irene Jordan reached the new building, she found Mr. and Mrs. Manuel Nuñes on the steps.

Elizena Nuñes was in labor—and the hospital was locked! After a few frantic moments, Jordan located a maintenance man, who unlocked the door so she could guide the couple to Maternity on the fourth floor. At 2:45 p.m., their baby arrived, the Belleville site’s first delivery. The parents named the child Clara Maass Ramos Nuñes.

Worries that the new facility would be underutilized proved unfounded. In 1956, the last full year on the old site, the hospital admitted 4,403, had 583 births and counted 2,220 operations. In 1958, the first complete year at the new one, there were 10,058 admissions, 1,055 births and 4,748 surgeries. Clearly, the Belleville-NutleyBloomfield area had needed a hospital of its own—and would use it.

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Success for Clara Maass Medical Center required more than medical advances and sophisticated machines.

It also required a commitment to respond to the changing healthcare needs of the community.

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ABOVE, CMMC in1993. In the previous five years, more than $45 million had been spent for new and upgraded facilities and equipment.

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MASTERING MODERNIZATION:

1958–1993

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lara Maass Memorial Hospital was now better situated for the future, and for an era in which medicine was rapidly changing Lifesaving medications such as penicillin that had come to the fore in World War II were now widely available. Streptomycin was discovered in 1943, and the prototype for erythromycin had been pinpointed in 1952.

Merck had synthesized cortisone in 1946 for use in rheumatoid arthritis, and in November 1954, famed doctor Jonas Salk, MD, had begun inoculating children with his polio vaccine. The first laser was built in 1960. Laser technology would go on to help surgeons repair everything from eyes to prostates.

Artificial devices gave vascular and orthopedic specialists new options. Franklyn Gerard, MD, installed the first pacemaker at Clara Maass in 1960, and in 1973 Anthony Stefanelli, MD, performed the institution’s first total hip replacement.

Atomic science and the computer revolution bred extraordinary technologies. Linear accelerators were first applied at Clara Maass in 1977, computerized tomography (CT) scanning in 1981, and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in 1990. These technologies reinforced the hospital’s standing as a state-of-the-art facility unsurpassed in its region.

But success for Clara Maass required more than medical advances and sophisticated machines. It took a commitment, as then-CEO Robert S. Curtis said, “to respond to the changing healthcare needs of the community.”

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DEMAND—AND MORE GROWTH

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Executive Director Albin Oberg observed in 1958 that the hospital had “made many new friends in the past year. I am only afraid that we shall find our hospital too small.”

Indeed, admissions in 1961 rose by 475 over the year before; from 1958 to 1961, patient days went up by 18,438; the Emergency Room treated 1,660 in 1958, but more than 4,300 in 1961; overall occupancy stood at 85 percent in 1961. One day in March 1962, the census hit an “all-time high” of 339.

The need for expansion was clear. On April 28, 1960, workmen began excavating for a School of Nursing building.

Two years later, planning was “pretty well set” for building two wings (North and South) to add 100 beds. Estimated cost: $2.9 million.

Meanwhile, Oberg was pushing for a professional building on the campus for physicians’ offices. Finding the necessary money was also a challenge, but it helped when the construction company, Blanchard, put in some funding.

By late 1962, this first professional building at 50 Newark Avenue was only a month or two

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away from occupancy, and several doctors had already signed leases.

More buildings would follow. In 1966, the North and South Annexes with their 100 beds were opened.

Now a new concept was evolving: What if the hospital provided an on-campus structure where patients could recuperate?

Thus was born the Continuing Care Center (CCC), a convalescent care facility. The CCC’s 150 beds were dedicated on Sunday, September 19, 1971. Transferred from the main floors to the CCC, patients were encouraged to eat in its dining room and received skilled nursing care. Then a decision was made to dedicate one 40-bed floor in the CCC to cancer treatment; it debuted in November 1977.

A population explosion was a happy problem. Through the 1970s, births at the hospital ran strong, topping 2,000 in three years. Clearly, the Labor and Delivery areas and the nurseries should be modernized.

Alterations began in 1980, and the new fourth-floor layout was in use the next spring, with equipment for parents “who wish to play a bigger role in the birth of their child.”

A population explosion was a happy problem.

Through the 1970s, births at the hospital ran strong, topping 2,000 in three years. Clearly, the Labor and Delivery areas and nurseries should be modernized.

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FROM HOSPITAL TO MEDICAL CENTER

ABOVE, a nurse cradles a young patient circa 1960.

OPPOSITE PAGE, the Continuing Care Center opened in 1971 as a place where patients could recuperate after leaving acute-care floors. By 1987, it had been converted to a 120-bed nursing home.

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The 1980s brought new drugs, quicker-recovery anesthetics, and surgical innovations. These changes—coupled with costdriven pressures to discharge patients sooner—nourished a development that became one of the institution’s major strengths.

At first, they called it One-Day Surgery. Surgery patients who could safely do so would go home before nightfall.

Starting early in 1980, doctors used this approach for minor surgeries—oral and dental, plastic, gynecological and urological procedures.

A new professional building at 5 Franklin Avenue opened in 1981, with space for more than 70 physicians. That year, the state approved a joint mobile intensive care program (with the College of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey–College Hospital) to bring “a part of the Emergency Room to the patient” in a vehicle equipped with telemetry, a defibrillator and mobile radio. The first unit began rolling in October 1982.

One-Day Surgery evolved rapidly, and in 1983 it was rechristened Same-Day Services (SDS). Urologist Anthony Del Gaizo, MD, Medical Director of SDS, noted the convenience it provided patients. “What began as a cost-cutting move mandated by government and insurance agencies,” he said, “has turned into a system that benefits everyone.”

Radiation’s second-floor space underwent a stem-to-stern update in late 1981 to make diagnostic procedures quicker but also more thorough. Two rooms housed ultrasound, while other rooms were outfitted for a radiographic/fluoroscopic unit, special procedures, film-sorting and a new CT scanner.

Finally, in 1981 Clara Maass Memorial Hospital became Clara Maass Medical Center (CMMC). The new name better reflected the institution’s breadth of services. In 1986 management fine-tuned a plan to spend $9.9 million on a basic renovation of the plant.

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On one hand, the time had come to “downsize” acute-care functions. The hospital would no longer need 575 acutecare beds. “That’s not the way medicine is going,” as Senior Vice President Neil Dello Russo, MD, in charge of medical affairs, said.

On the other hand, CMMC had decided to increase its attention to the elderly, setting up a nursing home on campus.

By the fall of 1986, the planning took this shape: 120 beds for the elderly in the CCC building and a geriatric day care center. Both would be in easy reach of topflight medical services.

On November 25, 1987, the state approved the CCC’s use as a nursing home. Six days later, Philomena Capanear of Belleville became its first resident. For her and the other elderly patients, CMMC’s intent was clear: to

sustain and improve their quality of daily living through varied activities—physical, intellectual, spiritual, educational. Within months there was a waiting list for this new program.

CMMC also embarked on a major modernization to upgrade the original 1957 units, while installing new equipment and introducing new educational programs. These fundamental changes were still in the hands of architects and planners when one of the three floors in the CCC took on a new mission. On April 15, 1988, a Medical Oncology Unit opened. It offered 50 beds and a new focus: centralized care of patients in which physicians, nurses, social workers and chaplains would team up.

“The family isn’t in the way here,” observed Rosemary Scoppetuolo, a supervisor in the unit. “They’re a plus. They can

visit 24 hours a day. We want to create a feeling of the home.”

And they did: one patient had 20 family members bring in food for Thanksgiving dinner. Table settings and flower arrangements were provided by the nurses.

Ultimately, Medical Oncology was to find a fixed location on the first floor of CCC. In the substructure right below it, cancer treatment was significantly enhanced in 1988 with the addition of a second linear accelerator (costing $1.35 million).

CMMC was keeping pace with healthcare developments, while responding to the changing needs of the surrounding towns.

By early 1990, patients were being admitted to renovated 2 and 3 South floors; by that summer, 5 and 6 South were ready. Other floors would reopen in spring 1991.

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EVOLVING IN THE EARLY ’90S

OPPOSITE PAGE: By 1969, the North and South Annexes were in full use. Behind the main structure is Louise C. Kidde Hall, built in 1960 as a new home for the School of Nursing. ABOVE, James Heimann, MD, assisted by Radiology Technician Ed Hoffman, utilized the Progressive Imaging Center’s new state-of-the-art CT scanner in the early 1990s.

When the concept of the outpatient cancer center was introduced in California, James Orsini, MD, CMMC’s Director of Medical Oncology, visited one of the first ones. “I brought a lot of ideas back home,” he recalled. “With the help of the executive staff, we were able to formulate a plan.” That plan created the Outpatient Chemotherapy Unit housed in the new Premium Building and dedicated in October 1990.

As part of that same Newark Avenue structure, the Progressive Imaging Center welcomed its first patients late that year. It offered CT scanning, ultrasound, the latest in mammography technology, and the hospital’s first MRI equipment. Bought for $1.76 million, the MRI enabled professionals, in CEO Curtis’s words, “to view the complex body systems and organs in three dimensions.”

Also in 1990, management brought on a computerized records system. Its first assignments: giving

computer access to admissiondischarge-transfer data, medical records, utilization reviews, and Emergency Room and outpatient registrations.

The medical center also set out to do more for children, in 1990 hiring Malcolm Schwartz, MD, as Director of Pediatric Services. His domain would include the 20-bed pediatric unit and an entirely new service, “PedsCare.” When it opened in 1991, PedsCare offered families professional care for their children after their pediatricians’ offices had closed for the night.

Relocated to the ground floor, the Pharmacy gained 1,600 extra square feet. Meanwhile, the Emergency Room was outfitted with a “fast track” area, a holding room with four beds, separate waiting areas for children, and suture, trauma, and triage rooms. Thus enlarged, the ER could accommodate 14 acute patients at one time.

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In geriatrics, oncology, imaging, pediatrics, emergency services and more, Clara Maass Medical Center was keeping pace with healthcare developments while responding to the needs of the surrounding towns.

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A FOCUS ON THE PATIENT

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Patient welfare continued to be CMMC’s focus. Once again, Radiology was significantly renovated. A special procedures room was readied for arteriograms and other interventional radiology studies.

On a brisk October Saturday in 1990, CMMC dedicated four new centers for patient care. The $8 million invested in these areas—the Ambulatory Services Center, the Surgical Intensive Care Unit, the Progressive Imaging Center, and the Outpatient Chemotherapy Unit—brought greater flexibility in a time when more treatment took place in outpatient settings.

No CMMC employee present that day had forgotten that six months earlier, the Imaging Center had been vandalized. Staffers from all levels pitched in to resurrect the facility. Scott Wallace, Director of Ambulatory Services, was confident he would never again “see a labor force forget their job descriptions like that, pull together, and support the need for help in an institution.

We cleaned that place up in three days!” Thus was the destruction of April turned into the triumph of October.

By 1994, when Clara Maass Medical Center celebrated the 125th anniversary of its founding, it comprised seven structures and 475 beds (plus 120 in the CCC) on 23 acres. Where in 1960 there had been 925 employees, there were now 1,760. In the preceding five years, $45 million had been spent for new and renovated facilities and equipment. The annual budget approached $100 million.

Still, changes in the healthcare marketplace were bringing significant challenges to healthcare institutions.

For Clara Maass Medical Center, however, even greater growth and expansion was to come.

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In 1966, at age 20, Patricia Amadori gave birth to her first child, a son, at Clara Maass.

He was the 100,000th patient at the hospital, a distinction celebrated with a cake and a card signed by the staff. More than 50 years later, Patricia has donated the card to the hospital for its archives.

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On a brisk October Saturday in 1990, CMMC dedicated four new centers for patient care.

The $8 million investment brought greater flexibility in a time when more treatment was taking place in outpatient settings.

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The Clara Maass Medical Center entrance was given an upgrade in the 1990s. Even bigger and better changes were to come.

While many stand-alone hospitals in New Jersey and nationwide have closed, Clara Maass Medical Center has thrived and attained new levels of excellence and sustainability.

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A NEW ERA OF EXCELLENCE:

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wenty-five years ago, independent, stand-alone hospitals all over the country were in a tough spot. The trend toward doing as many procedures as possible on an outpatient basis and keeping hospital stays short meant more empty beds. Individually, hospitals had little power to negotiate with insurance companies for longer, covered hospital stays or greater reimbursement.

But while many stand-alone hospitals in New Jersey and nationwide have closed over the years, Clara Maass Medical Center has thrived and attained new levels of excellence and sustainability. The turnaround came about due to an astute medical and hospital staff at CMMC that recognized the challenges the institution faced and looked for a solution to save the hospital they loved. It was due, also, to a visionary administrator at a nearby hospital who had begun devising an innovative solution to his own hospital’s problems, as well as those of many others in the state.

The result was the 1998 merger of Clara Maass with Saint Barnabas Health Care System (SBHCS).

The merger ushered in an era of even greater excellence at the medical center, expanded the physical plant with beautiful new facilities, and resulted in CMMC’s winning an abundance of state and national awards for excellence in medical care.

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AT LEFT, Ronald J. Del Mauro, who oversaw CMMC’s merger with the Saint Barnabas Health Care System (SBHCS). SBHCS ultimately included Clara Maass Medical Center; Community Medical Center in Toms River; Kimball Medical Center in Lakewood (now Monmouth Medical Center Southern Campus); Monmouth Medical Center in Long Branch; Newark Beth Israel Medical Center; Saint Barnabas Medical Center in Livingston; Saint Barnabas Outpatient Centers, along with the Saint Barnabas Ambulatory Care Center in Livingston and the Saint Barnabas Caterina A. Gregori, MD, Women’s Center for Gynecological Surgery in West Orange; Clara Maass Medical Center, West Hudson Division in Kearny; eight nursing and rehabilitation centers and two assisted living facilities; ambulatory care facilities; geriatric centers; a psychiatric facility; a state-wide behavioral health network; and comprehensive home care and hospice programs. In 2016, SBHCS merged with the Robert Wood Johnson Health System, creating RWJBarnabas Health.

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THE STORY OF THE MERGER Clara Maass Medical Center’s journey to become part of SBHCS (now called RWJBarnabas Health—the state’s largest integrated healthcare delivery system) involved many people at both CMMC and SBHCS. But the person who is truly responsible for building the system is Ronald J. Del Mauro, who at that time was President and CEO of SBHCS. Del Mauro had started at Saint Barnabas Medical Center in 1967 and took over as President and CEO in 1985, when, he recalls, the hospital was virtually bankrupt. He realized that hospitals everywhere needed a new way of providing healthcare—and doing business— to survive.

“It was probably the most

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competitive time in the history of healthcare,” he says. “Hospitals were literally on the brink of going out of business. Some people said that the movement to outpatient services and discharging patients earlier meant that there were now too many hospitals. In the Newark and Clara Maass area, for instance, you had St. James, St. Michaels, University Hospital, Newark Beth Israel, West Hudson, Columbus Hospital, Mountainside.” All these hospitals were competing for patients, and some have since been closed.

Strength in numbers, Del Mauro realized, was the key to survival.

Banded together, hospitals would be able to capture a bigger market share. Once the hospitals were

working together as part of a larger system, more referrals would be created within the system, increasing patients for all of them. Del Mauro set out to combine a number of independent hospitals into one large, powerful healthcare system.

Del Mauro combined six hospitals as well as numerous nursing, rehabilitation, assisted living, geriatric and other healthcare facilities into a single large entity that would be recognized across the state—and the country—for excellence. “Today, you’d call it ‘branding the system’,” he says. “But back then I was thinking about a philosophy the public would identify with and what would make these new relationships between institutions work.”

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WHY CLARA MAASS? Several factors made CMMC a good fit to join the new system. It, too, was experiencing financial difficulties as a result of changes in healthcare delivery. And Del Mauro was very familiar with the hospital. “I knew the demographics, the quality of the medical staff, and the kind of care patients received there,” he recalls. “I believed that it would be a good fit for the system we were building and be integral to our success.”

Because some of the Clara Maass physicians also had admitting privileges at Saint Barnabas, there was already an affinity between the two institutions. And while there were growing pains for an administrative staff that had to adapt to new systems—and deal with redundancies—the hospital’s medical staff and employees were excited by and supportive of the merger. Clara Maass was the 11th hospital to join the Saint Barnabas Health Care System.

Del Mauro served as Chairman of the Board of Trustees at Clara Maass from 1998 to 2000.

“The merger gave Clara Maass the benefits of a large healthcare organization with expertise in management, marketing, fundraising and other areas,” says Robert V. Gamba, Chairman of the Clara Maass Medical Center Foundation Board of Trustees, which works with donors to support initiatives at the medical center. “It has been very helpful for the Foundation to have knowledge from different sources and access to additional information.”

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While there were growing pains, the hospital’s medical staff and employees were excited by and supportive of the merger. Clara Maass Medical Center was the 11th hospital to join the Saint Barnabas Health Care System.

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A PHILOSOPHY OF EXCELLENCE Del Mauro’s ambitious plan included ensuring that all the hospitals in the system, including the newest addition, Clara Maass, were cost-efficient. Just as important, the vision was for the combined system to be recognized for its excellent medical care. The hospitals in the system, Del Mauro determined, would also earn a reputation for providing a caring environment that encompassed patients, patients’ family members, and the hospital staff, too.

“We called it ‘The Barnabas

Experience,’” explains Del Mauro. “We wanted to create this experience from the time someone pulled into one of the properties until the time they left. To do this we became almost obsessed with employee, physician, patient, and family satisfaction. How can we create that sense of trust? We wanted to create the best possible environment for physicians to practice in, the best possible environment for employees to work in, and the best possible environment for patients and

family members to be cared for in.”

Clara Maass stepped up to the challenge. “I credit the Clara Maass medical staff and employees for embracing that.

It could not have been done if everyone wasn’t committed to that philosophy,” says Del Mauro.

“It was all about the cost, quality, and satisfaction. Clara Maass never disappointed me. They were struggling before the merger, but they were very successful in executing the philosophy.”

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ABOVE, checking the vital signs of patients is one of the medical center’s many outreach programs. Some of these focus on the health and wellness of senior citizens, such as the Clara Cares program, which provides regular health exams for those living at local senior residences.

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“We wanted to create ‘The Barnabas Experience’ from the time someone pulled into one of the properties until the time they left.

We became almost obsessed with employee, physician and patient satisfaction.”

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AT LEFT, Thomas A. Biga was tapped to be the CEO of Clara Maass after it joined SBHCS.

“I was looking for someone who shared my philosophy,” remembers Ron Del Mauro. “I saw how Tom interacted with employees and physicians. People trusted him.” chapter

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INSPIRING LEADERSHIP In 1998, Thomas A. Biga was Chief Executive Officer at Irvington General Hospital following a stint as Vice President for Operations at Monmouth Medical Center— both members of SBHCS. He was tapped by Ron Del Mauro to become CEO of Clara Maass and help the hospital make the transition from stand-alone hospital to member of a system.

“I was looking for someone who shared my philosophy,” explains Del Mauro. “Tom is bright and well-credentialed, and his resume is terrific. But what set him apart was that I felt he didn’t have to learn the philosophy. It was what he had in his heart and soul that really distinguished him. I saw how he interacted with employees, with physicians.

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People trusted him.”

Susan Gallina, RN, MSN, Director of Perioperative Services at CMMC, has been working at the hospital since graduating from the Clara Maass School of Nursing in 1984. She vividly remembers the time of the merger, and how quickly the hospital atmosphere changed. “The first time Tom Biga came into the hospital was the first time we’d ever seen anyone from the administration,” she says. “He was friendly. He’d come in and say ‘Hi’ to everyone. It really made a big impact.”

For his part, Biga was gratified to find that the CMMC medical staff had a strong interest in making the merger successful.

“It was the Clara Maass Board of Trustees and medical staff

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who were the impetus behind the merger,” he says. “And the physicians were involved in a lot of the planning and decisionmaking afterwards.”

Biga recognized how difficult it could be for a stand-alone hospital to join a large system with a corporate role and initiatives. “At a stand-alone hospital, those are typically birthed and implemented at the local site,” he says. For instance, legal, compliance and risk assessment departments operated for the entire system and were no longer separate entities at each institution. “But because of the spirit in which Clara Maass came into the system, there was less tension, and more motivation to make the merger work,” Biga recalls.

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THE CHANGES BEGIN

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ABOVE, scenes from the 2007 celebration of Clara Maass Medical Center’s 50 years in Belleville. CENTER, Joseph N. DiVincenzo, Jr., Essex County Executive, then-CEO Thomas Biga and broadcaster and author Steve Adubato, Jr. BOTTOM, celebrants included many members of the medical staff.

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Medical practices were also changed to be more consistent within SBHCS. “We standardized the way care is delivered, with protocols for how we treat various conditions,” explains Biga. “We implemented best practices. Now everyone in the system treats sepsis, for instance, the same way.

“One big benefit of being in a system is the clinicians and the leadership. There are collaboratives, and everyone can get into a room with their colleagues and talk about best practices. Doctors can call each other to discuss individual cases or situations. Among the Clara Maass medical staff, there’s true concern and compassion for their patients, but also a strong feeling that this is their hospital and they will do whatever it takes to make it successful.”

“It was a smooth transition,” agrees Robert A. Gaccione, Esq., Chairman of the Clara Maass Medical Center Board of Trustees. “It was a big change, since the hospital was ceding authority to an overseeing entity. But it was necessary and well worth it for Clara Maass.”

As the integration continued and the hospital hit its stride, state—and national—authorities started to take note, and the awards started rolling in. (See “A Cavalcade of Awards,” page 54.)

Biga considers the successful integration of CMMC into the Saint Barnabas Health Care System one of the major accomplishments of his tenure as CEO, which lasted until 2010. Today he is President, Hospital Division, for the entire RWJBarnabas Health system.

Just as Biga was instrumental in implementing Ron Del Mauro’s vision for Clara Maass, his successor as CEO, Mary Ellen Clyne, PhD, continues that legacy. “Tom’s leadership enabled Mary Ellen Clyne to step right in and continue that,” says Del Mauro. “And she’s doing a great job and carrying on that philosophy.”

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NEW LEADERSHIP CARRIES THE TORCH Mary Ellen Clyne, PhD, trained as a nurse, had moved into management and had held several administrative posts at CMMC, including Vice President of Patient Care Services, Chief Nursing Officer and Chief Operating Officer. When she assumed the post of President and CEO of the hospital in 2010, her management style fit seamlessly into the model set by Del Mauro and Biga.

In spite of her elevated position, “she’s ‘Mary Ellen’ not ‘Dr. Clyne,’ to everyone,” says JoAnne Penn, MA, RN-BC, a 1968 graduate of the Clara Maass School of Nursing who is a pediatric nurse at the hospital.

“I remember years ago when I was with a patient and having a problem with the IV, she came

right in and helped. Once I saw a housekeeper drop something, and Mary Ellen bent down to pick it up.” The message is that management’s support of staff isn’t just words, and the result is intense pride in and loyalty to the institution.

“From my perspective—and it comes from research that I’ve conducted—there’s a recipe for success,” says Clyne. “A lot of that comes down to your relationship with people, and what I call reciprocal trust. You can lead, or think you’re leading, and as the saying goes, if you turn around and nobody’s there, you don’t have followers.

“Our ability to instill connective leadership with the employees and physicians and the management team is based

on reciprocal trust. If I need your help to get us where we need to be, then when you need help, we’re here to help you with what you need. It’s really about that relationship. Connecting with everybody and having them realize that you genuinely care about them as human beings.

Clara Maass is a great place to give care and a great place to get care.”

Under Clyne’s leadership, CMMC has continued to receive national recognition and accolades. “We’re like ‘The Little Engine That Could,’ says Clyne, referencing the classic children’s book. “This is because of the dedication of the healthcare team and medical center staff, who are driven by providing excellence in all they do.”

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AT LEFT, Clara Maass Medical Center President and Chief Executive Officer Mary Ellen Clyne, PhD. FAR LEFT, the KinderSmile Foundation held its first SMILE! awards at CMMC in 2019. From left to right: Frank Mazzarella, MD, Chief Medical Officer, Clara Maass Medical Center; Mary Ellen Clyne, PhD; New Jersey’s First Lady Tammy Snyder Murphy; Nicole McGrath-Barnes, DDS, Founder and CEO, KinderSmile Foundation; Annette CozzarelliFranklin, MD, Director, Women’s Health Services, Clara Maass Medical Center; and Darwin K. Hayes, DDS, MHA, FAGD, State of New Jersey Dental Director.

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TOP, In 2015, Clara Maass Medical Center began its first major on-campus expansion project in more than a decade. The $23 million project included construction of a new four-story, 87,000-square-foot building featuring a state-of-the-art, private 32-bed Intensive Care Unit, two levels of Class-A space for physicians and a new main lobby. BOTTOM, numerous dignitaries gathered for a December 2015 beam signing; Stephen Barry of Rendina Healthcare Real Estate, Robert Gaccione, Esq., Chairman, Board of Trustees, Barry Ostrowsky, President and CEO of RWJBarnabas Health, Mary Ellen Clyne, PhD, President and CEO of Clara Maass Medical Center; the late Marie Vander Zwan, longtime president of the Auxiliary Volunteers.

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A CONTINUING STORY The merger with SBHCS is hardly the end of the story. There have been several mergers since, and more may come. Success begets success, and Clara Maass continues to grow, as does the entire system.

For a long time, Clara Maass was the last one to join the Saint Barnabas system. In 2004, West Hudson Hospital in Kearny, which was already part of the Barnabas system, was merged with CMMC to create CMMC, West Hudson Division. Jersey City Medical Center joined the system—by then known as Barnabas Health— in 2014.

Later, in 2016, Barnabas Health joined with Robert Wood Johnson Health System, creating one of New Jersey’s largest healthcare networks: RWJBarnabas Health. “The new health system will greatly strengthen our commitment to medical education and research,” said Barry H. Ostrowsky, who was President and CEO of Barnabas

Health and retained the title for the new RWJBarnabas Health system. A statement jointly released by Barnabas Health and Robert Wood Johnson Health System at the time said: “The combined system, with shared cultures and core values, will provide greater opportunity to improve the health and promote wellness of communities throughout the state. Through sharing of resources and best practices, the merger will promote the highest quality healthcare delivery and also enable greater economies of scale.”

And even more recently, in 2018, RWJBarnabas Health and Rutgers University partnered to launch the state’s largest and most comprehensive academic health system. Currently, the system comprises 11 hospitals, 9,000 physicians and 32,000 employees.

Ron Del Mauro retired in 2011, but his interest—and pride—in the system continues.

“There were more services that

grew after I left, more hospitals that joined the system,” he says. “But the same philosophy still applies. That’s how they continued to grow. I think people in the community know that when they go to Clara, they will receive nationally recognized, high-quality care.”

Thomas F. Kelaher, who was the Chairman of CMMC’s Board of Trustees from 2001 to 2008 (and went on to become Mayor of Toms River, New Jersey), agrees.

“I have to give tribute to Ron Del Mauro, who truly changed the face of healthcare in NJ. We’ve been blessed with really good administrators, including Tom Biga—an outstanding young guy who really turned the place around—and Mary Ellen Clyne, who’s really terrific. It’s all good people doing good things.”

Says Del Mauro of the “new” Clara Maass Medical Center: “We created an institution that will be celebrating its 200th anniversary 50 years from now.”

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In 2016, CMMC became part of RWJBarnabas Health, one of the state’s largest healthcare networks. Says Ron Del Mauro, “We created an institution that will be celebrating its 200th anniversary 50 years from now.”

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A CAVALCADE OF AWARDS It would be difficult to find space to list every award Clara Maass Medical Center has received in the past quarter century.

Access to greater resources brought about by the mergers has meant construction of new facilities and the acquisition of new medical equipment, enabling the hospital to offer far more services to the community it serves. Here are just some of the awards the medical center has received in recent years:

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2005

• Named a Top Hospital by Thomson Reuters (Top 100 Hospital: Performance Improvement Leader) • Only hospital in Essex and Hudson counties to achieve a top 25 percent ranking for care delivery in all three lifethreatening conditions—heart failure care, heart attack care and pneumonia care—according to data collected and published by the U.S. Department of Health and Senior Services • Selected by Healthcare Quality Strategies, Inc. (HQSI) as a Best Practice for Smoking Cessation among Congestive Heart Failure Patients • Social Services/Case Management received 2005 Starfish Award from Passaic County Foster and Adoptive Family Services

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2006

• Once again named a Top Hospital by Thomson Reuters (Top 100 Hospital: Performance Improvement Leader) • Ranked among the top hospitals in the state for heart attack, heart failure, and pneumonia care by the Department of Health and Senior Services NJ Report Card • Named a Solucient 100 Top Hospital: Performance Improvement Award • Received a Healthgrades General Surgery Excellence Award • Received Healthgrades Five Stars for Stroke, Pulmonary (communityacquired pneumonia, critical care), Sepsis, Gastroenterology Procedures and Surgeries, and Orthopedics (Hip Fracture) Care

2007

• Received a Healthgrades Distinguished Hospital Award for Clinical Excellence • Named Thomson Reuters Top 100 Hospital for Performance Improvement

2011

• Received two Grade A scores in Hospital Safety from The Leapfrog Group • Named among the Top 100 hospitals nationwide—one of only three hospitals in NJ to attain the distinction—by Thomson Reuters • Earned Healthgrades Patient Safety Excellence Award

2012

• Two Grade A scores in Hospital Safety from The Leapfrog Group • Earned Healthgrades Patient Safety Excellence Award

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2013

• Ranked among the 50 Best Regional Hospitals in the NY metro area by U.S. News & World Report • Becker’s Hospital Review named CMMC one of the 100 Hospitals with Great Heart Programs • Earned Healthgrades Patient Safety Excellence Award

2014

• Earned Healthgrades Patient Safety Excellence Award

2015

• Earned Healthgrades Patient Safety Excellence Award • Received Healthgrades Outstanding Patient Experience Award

2016

• Earned Specialty Excellence Awards in Labor & Delivery, and Obstetrics & Gynecology, from Healthgrades • Named by the American Hospital Association’s Health Forum to the annual Health Care Most Wired Hospitals list • Earned gold recognition from Health Resources and Services Administration National Hospital Organ Donation Campaign Workplace Partnership for Life Hospital Campaign for increased organ donation efforts

• Named by the American Hospital Association’s Health Forum to the annual Health Care Most Wired Hospitals list • Earned platinum recognition from Health Resources and Services Administration National Hospital Organ Donation Campaign

2017

• Recognized by U.S. News & World Report for High Performance in Heart Failure Care •E arned Specialty Excellence Awards in Labor & Delivery, and Obstetrics & Gynecology, from Healthgrades •R eceived a Five-Star Rating from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in Clinical Excellence for Bariatric Surgery, Colorectal Surgery, Gallbladder Removal Surgery, Maternity Care, Hip Fracture Treatment, Appendectomy, Gynecological Surgery, and Vaginal Delivery amed by the American Hospital •N Association’s Health Forum to the annual Health Care Most Wired Hospitals list •E arned gold recognition from Health Resources and Services Administration National Hospital Organ Donation Campaign

2019

• Earned Specialty Excellence Award in Bariatric Surgery from Healthgrades • Earned a Gold Seal of Approval from The Joint Commission for serving patients in its palliative care program • Recognized as High-Performing Hospital for Congestive Heart Failure by U.S. News & World Report • Received 12th A Grade from The Leapfrog Group’s Hospital Safety Grades •R eceived Healthgrades Patient Safety Excellence Award, placing it among the top 5 percent of hospitals in the nation • Earned the Gold Seal of Approval from The Joint Commission with disease specific certification in Acute Coronary Syndrome, Cardiac Rehabilitation, Heart Failure, Joint Replacement (Hip and Knee) and Advanced Certification in Palliative Care • Earned platinum recognition from Health Resources and Services Administration National Hospital Organ Donation Campaign •E arned a designation in LGBTQ Healthcare Equality from the Human Rights Campaign Foundation

2018

• Earned a designation in LGBTQ Healthcare Equality from the Human Rights Campaign Foundation •E arned Specialty Excellence Award in Bariatric Surgery from Healthgrades •E arned Specialty Excellence Awards in Labor & Delivery, and Obstetrics & Gynecology, from Healthgrades •T he Transitional Care Unit (TCU) at CMMC earned an overall Five-Star rating from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services

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ABOVE, a rendering of the major expansion begun in 2015; OPPOSITE, the reality in 2019.

An infusion of capital post-mergers, as well as fundraising efforts by the Clara Maass Medical Center Foundation, have enabled an ambitious building program.

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AN EVER-EXPANDING

CAMPUS

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P

eople familiar with the medical center 25 years ago would hardly recognize the campus today. An infusion of capital, first from the Saint Barnabas Health Care System and later from RWJBarnabas Health, as well as fundraising efforts from the Clara Maass Medical Center Foundation, have enabled an ambitious building program.

“With the merger with the Saint Barnabas Health Care System, we had many more resources available to us,” says Patrick Ciccone, MD, who was Director of Urology at Clara Maass for a number of years and was Medical Staff President from 1999 to 2000. “We did a lot of work with quality improvement and expanded our services. The renovation of the Emergency Department was the biggest thing that happened while I was Medical Staff President. We were able to see many more patients in a more modern and up-to-date facility.”

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EMERGENCIES FIRST

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“I believe very strongly that the Emergency Department is literally the gateway to the community,” explains Ron Del Mauro, CEO of the Saint Barnabas Health Care System from 1996 to 2011.

“It’s important to create an environment where the public has trust and confidence. The expectations of the patient and their family members have to be met. With every new hospital that came on board, one of the first things I asked is that we go into the ED and make sure this philosophy was carried out.”

By August 2000, Clara Maass had completed the first phase of a $10 million ED renovation project, featuring state-of-theart technology and enhanced facilities for patients and their families. The expansion was

completed in 2002.

The new 13,000-square-foot ED doubled the space of the department and included 14 beds, a dedicated assessment area designed to exclusively treat and monitor patients experiencing symptoms of a cardiac episode, two radiology rooms, a 24-hour laboratory for expedited lab work and a transfusion services area.

“We had one heck of a party for the opening of the new ED,” remembers Kathy Lesko, who was Director of Marketing for CMMC from 1996 to 2005. “When they were done reconfiguring that space, it was night and day. It was so impressive, and so efficient.”

CMMC had a similar big celebration in July 2019, when a grand opening was held to

mark further expansion of the ED, including a welcoming new entrance, new adult and pediatric reception areas, an adult observation unit, a separate pediatrics area, new consultation rooms and a new discharge area.

“In the past 20 years, the number of ill and injured patients we see has more than tripled, to about 80,000 patients a year,” says John Fontanetta, MD, Chairman of Emergency Medicine, who has been with CMMC for more than 20 years.

“But the expansion and renovation are about more than that. We want our patients to feel comfortable that they are receiving the best possible care, and the whole experience, from the time they walk in the door, contributes to that.”

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OPPOSITE PAGE, the new and engaging pediatric waiting room with a colorful undersea motif. ABOVE, a serene adult waiting area, including comfortable seating with charging for mobile devices. Shown at the ED opening are Joseph N. DiVincenzo, Jr., Essex County Executive; Mary Ellen Clyne, PhD, President and Chief Executive Officer at CMMC; Robert Gaccione, Chairman, CMMC Board of Trustees; and Thomas Biga, President, Hospital Division, RWJBarnabas Health.

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“We want our patients to feel comfortable that they are receiving the best possible care, and the whole experience, from the time they walk in the door, contributes to that.”

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BIGGER, BETTER, NEWER

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The ED was only one of many campus expansions. In fact, there have been renovations and new building almost every year since the merger.

“I remember holding big scissors in my hands, cutting ribbons,” says Tom Kelaher, who was chairman of CMMC’s Board of Trustees at the time of the merger. There were a lot of ribbons to cut.

“People were very excited about the investment in Clara Maass by the Barnabas system,” says Thomas Biga, who took over as CEO of CMMC after the merger, and is now President, Hospital Division, for the entire RWJBarnabas Health System.

“We spent a lot of money.”

In 2003, the hospital opened a newly renovated radiation oncology department featuring a spa-like environment and soothing atmosphere for patients undergoing cancer treatment.

Lesko remembers being struck with how beautiful the new radiation area was. “When you got off the elevator, there was a little waterfall, and there was music piped through. It set a completely different tone than what patients were used to.” Lesko says that over the course of her years at Clara Maass, the campus went “from a small hospital and nursing school to an ever-growing jigsaw of buildings. The campus grew with the community.”

In 2005, a newly enhanced operating room featured a

portable procedure table and monitor, allowing vascular surgeons to perform carotid and peripheral stenting.

In August of 2006, there was a celebration—complete with vintage automobiles, sirens and horns blaring—for the opening of a much-needed new parking deck.

Also in 2006, a new maternity center opened, with private rooms and hotel-like accommodations, including pull-out beds for partners. Two of the rooms included state-of-the-art fetal monitoring equipment.

In 2007, additions to the hospital included a new orthopedics suite, a third hyperbaric chamber for the Wound Care Center, a mobile PET/CT scanner and a new multivascular suite.

In August 2010, the hospital opened a 20-bed Transitional Care Unit for patients who no longer need acute hospital care but are not ready to be discharged.

Over the years, many existing buildings were repurposed and renovated, making space for new services. As recently as 2019, for instance, thanks to a generous gift from CMMC Board of Trustees and Foundation board member Brian Sterling and his wife Linda, the Labor, Delivery and Recovery Department was renovated and now has six richly decorated suites with amenities like refrigerators. All the rooms are private, with private bathrooms and plenty of space for visitors.

ABOVE, LEFT TO RIGHT: The grand but welcoming new lobby; moving day for the Intensive Care Unit; the 2019 ribboncutting for new state-of-the-art operating rooms. Joining Mary Ellen Clyne, PhD, President and Chief Executive Officer, were: John V. Kelly, Jr., MD, Past President of the Medical Staff and Medical Director of the Transitional Care Unit; Robert A. Gaccione, Esq., Chairman, Clara Maass Medical Center Board of Trustees; Maria Nagamos, RN, Nurse Manager, Perioperative Services; Bonnie Geissler, RN, MHA, Chief Nursing Officer and Vice President for Patient Care Services; Susan Gallina, MSN, MAS, RN, CNOR, HN-BC, CCAP, Director of Perioperative Services; Eileen Fishman, Member of the Clara Maass Medical Center Foundation Board of Trustees; Edward Mercogliano, MD, Director of Surgical Services; and Robert Brautigan, MD, President of the Clara Maass Medical Center Medical Staff.

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One of the biggest changes to the campus occurred in 2017, when the hospital opened a brand-new, four-story, 87,000-square-foot building.

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THE MEDICAL CENTER’S NEW FACE One of the biggest changes to the campus occurred in 2017, when the hospital opened a brand-new, four-story, 87,000-square-foot building. The expansion included a sleek new main entrance and multi-level lobby, a new patient registration area, a retail pharmacy, and a 32-bed Intensive Care Unit with private rooms. This airy, spacious structure is now the building that first greets visitors.

“This was one of the most important events of the past few years,” says Robert Gaccione, Esq., President of the Clara

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Maass Medical Center Board of Trustees, and member and former Chairman of the Clara Maass Foundation Board of Trustees.

“The new look of the hospital demonstrated, right up front, our concern and care of patients.”

“When I started at the hospital, the ICU was very dated, with small windows like portholes behind the patients’ beds. It was difficult for them to distinguish between day and night at times,” says Leticia Morgan, BSN, RN, CCRN, an ICU and Rapid Response nurse. “But now it’s

gorgeous, like a luxury hotel, with windows top to bottom.”

In November of 2018, a ribbon-cutting ceremony celebrated the completion of a new adult observation and postanesthesia care unit.

“Clara has been under construction for probably the last five years,” Tom Biga says.

“First the ORs, then the ED and observation unit.” At least for the near term, he says, though the medical center is always improving, new building will likely slow down.

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ABOVE, patient rooms in the new ICU combine the latest in comfort and technology.

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CONNECTING THROUGH TECHNOLOGY Not all renovations and additions require construction. Some— just as important, and just as expensive—are less visible.

An example is the hospital’s adoption of a new electronic medical records system.

Michael McTigue, Vice President, Information Technology for RWJBarnabas Health, is in charge of the system’s adoption of new electronic records. But he’s been watching Clara Maass expand for over four decades now. McTigue first started working at Clara Maass when he was in high school in the mid-1970s, cutting the grass. He continued working at the hospital, as a cleaner, throughout college and grad school. Then, after he got his college degree, he was hired at

CMMC as a data analyst, steadily being promoted until in 2006 he joined the Saint Barnabas Health Care System, overseeing IT for all of the hospitals, including Clara Maass.

While 40 years ago new buildings meant new lawns to mow or spaces to clean for McTigue, now it means something else. Every new building needs new equipment and needs to be wired to join the network.

“In 2013, we brought in full electronic medical records,” says McTigue. A major project is underway to get all of the hospitals onto the same records technology. Says McTigue, “The big change is that we’re bringing in Epic for all the hospitals, all physician practices, and Rutgers.

[As of mid-2019], 72 percent of the system population now has a record in Epic, and clinicians will really be able to share data.”

Adds Biga, “It’s a long haul and an expensive journey to convert all the facilities to Epic, but we need to do it to connect all the services.”

“I’m looking forward to greater involvement of computer knowledge in the assessment and practice of medicine,” says ENTotolaryngologist Arthur Lester, MD, who has been with CMMC since 1976 and was Medical Staff President in 2005-06. “We are getting access to immediate sets of information as computerization evolves, and that is helping us make great strides in diagnostic accuracy and patient care.”

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Scenes from the 2018 “A Tasteful Experience” fundraiser: TOP, Anupama Adlakha, MD; Andrea Barbier, DO, 2020-21 Clara Maass Medical Staff President; Frank Mazzarella, MD, Chief Medical Officer, CMMC. CENTER, Chef Joe poses with his creations at the fresh mozzarella station generously provided by Nanina’s in the Park and Foundation Trustee Joseph Maurillo.

BOTTOM, Lois Gaccione; Robert Gaccione, Jr., event co-chair and Vice Chairman of the Foundation Board; and Robert Gaccione, Esq., Chairman, CMMC Board of Trustees.

FOUNDATION FOR CHANGE Significant contributions to fund expansion at Clara Maass Medical Center have come from the Clara Maass Medical Center Foundation. “The Foundation’s mission,” says Robert V. Gamba, Chairman of the CMMC Foundation Board of Trustees, “is to raise funds and support the great medical staff at Clara Maass.” In recent years, the Foundation has provided essential support for the new ED, new operating rooms and renovated labor and delivery suites.

Gamba’s relationship with the hospital is personal. He was born at Clara Maass when the hospital was still at its original Newark location, and his two daughters were born at Clara Maass after it had moved to Belleville. That’s why, he says, he didn’t hesitate when he was asked to help the hospital by getting involved with the Foundation.

The Foundation provides budget relief for the medical center by applying for grants, soliciting donations, developing planned giving programs and holding multiple fundraising events throughout the year.

Two of the largest yearly events are the Golf Invitational and A Tasteful Experience wine and food tasting, both of which are eagerly anticipated by many in the community. “For the last few years we’ve held the Golf Invitational at the Montclair Country Club,” says Gaccione. “That’s 36 holes, and we’re fortunate to get 220 to 250 people in attendance at the tournament. Besides raising money, the event provides a good way for people to get to know about Clara Maass.”

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THE STARS COME OUT

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In recent years, Gamba has recruited former New York Giants offensive lineman David Diehl to act as the host of the golf outing.

“He’s the star of the event, and he usually rounds up a bunch of current or former football players to join him,” says Gamba.

Gamba describes the Foundation’s other main annual fundraiser, A Tasteful Experience, as “an opportunity to connect with the community and introduce new friends to Clara Maass through an enjoyable tasting event.” At 2006’s A Tasteful Experience, held at the Montclair Art Museum, Sopranos star Lorraine Bracco presented her Bracco Wines.

At the May 2010 Golf Invitational, Cake Boss Buddy

Valastro of Hoboken presented renowned former NY Yankees catcher Yogi Berra, a regular at the annual Golf Invitational, with a cake for his 85th birthday.

More than $220,000 was raised that year to help fund medical programs and services.

At other times, celebrities, grateful for the care they or their loved ones have received, step up on their own to help Clara Maass.

Renowned Italian opera singer Andrea Bocelli’s father, who lived in Italy, had been ill with cancer, and his physicians had called on Clara Maass oncologist James Orsini, MD, for help. In gratitude, for his next concert at the Meadowlands in 2000, the singer gave a section of tickets

to the Foundation, to be sold to raise money for the hospital.

“He sang his theme song, about saying goodbye, and I don’t think there was a dry eye in the place,” remembers Kelaher.

When the Foundation decided to allocate funds for a new oncology section, Dr. Orsini suggested they dedicate it to Bocelli’s father. When the unit was completed in 2002, Bocelli visited.

“The plaque’s message was in letters and Braille” in honor of Bocelli, who has been blind since his teens, says Kelaher. “And tears ran down Bocelli’s face when he put his hand on the plaque and realized it was for his dad.” Later that day, hospital visitors and staff were treated to an impromptu concert in the lobby.

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CONNECTING NEIGHBORS Beyond the high-profile events, the Foundation Board of Trustees, comprised entirely of volunteers, is busy year-round. The group meets four times a year to discuss events, programming and fund allocations. Physicians and community members are represented on the Foundation board. “We want everyone on the Foundation board to be educated about the hospital,” says Bob Gaccione.

“Mary Ellen Clyne, an outstanding CEO, always attends the meetings and gives an update.”

Keeping in touch with grateful patients and others in the community who have had good experiences with the hospital is another important role for the Foundation. Says Gamba, “I always tell people, when you give to Clara Maass, your dollars are immediately reinvested to help you, your family, friends and neighbors.”

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FAR LEFT, former New York Giant and two-time Super Bowl winner David Diehl, headliner of the annual Golf Invitational fundraiser, shown with Robert Gamba, Chairman of the CMMC Foundation and Robert Gaccione, Chairman of the CMMC Board of Trustees. NEAR LEFT, Robert Gamba tees off. CENTER, a grateful Andrea Bocelli gave a concert in the CMMC lobby.

RIGHT, baseball great Yogi Berra celebrated his 85th birthday at the Golf Invitational in 2010. ABOVE RIGHT, Brian Sterling, a member of the CMMC Board of Trustees and CMMC Foundation Board of Trustees, and his wife, Linda, donated generously to fund upgraded Labor and Delivery suites.

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While new buildings may be the obvious face of the medical center’s growth, Clara Maass has also kept pace with the incredible medical advances of the past 25 years.

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Medical Staff Presidents, past and present, meet monthly with hospital leadership.

ABOVE, James Orsini, MD, Robert Brautigan, MD, Said Saleh, MD; seated, John V. Kelly, Jr., MD, after a recent meeting in Kidde Hall.

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MEDICAL ADVANCES AND CUTTING-EDGE

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hile new buildings and renovations may be the obvious face of growth and improvements at CMMC, the medical center has also kept pace with the incredible medical advances that have taken place in the past 25 years. In many cases, CMMC has led the way.

Frank J. Mazzarella, MD, Vice President of Medical Affairs and Chief Medical Officer since 2001, has seen these changes firsthand. He joined Clara Maass in 1982, just out of residency. He says that among the many medical advancements of the past 25 years, a few at CMMC especially stand out.

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ABOVE, cardiologist Fadi Chaaban, MD, Director and Chief of Cardiology, with Elie Chakhtoura, MD, Director of the Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory, in the state-of-the-art cath lab.

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MAJOR MILESTONES IN CARE

CARDIAC STENTING “The CPORT-E trial that began in 2007 was huge. It was so innovative at the time,” says Dr. Mazzarella.

“It was an investigative project out of Johns Hopkins University to evaluate the success of having cardiac stenting done in a hospital that did not have on-site cardiac surgery. That meant a hospital would be able to do coronary angiography and stent placement without backup cardiac surgeons. There were only a few hospitals in New Jersey chosen to take part in it, and Clara Maass was one of them. Now we’re able to do PCI [percutaneous coronary intervention]—elective and emergency coronary stenting.

We’ve had great success, and we’ve developed a whole Code Heart Program with our interventional cardiologists.”

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ADVANCED CANCER TREATMENT “Our whole oncology program has changed, in part because of our affiliation with Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey, the state’s only National Cancer Institute (NCI)Designated Comprehensive Cancer Center. We work closely with them as part of the RWJBarnabas Health partnership that began in 2018.”

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MAJOR MILESTONES IN CARE

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DESIGNATION AS A PRIMARY STROKE CENTER “Another milestone was being certified by The Joint Commission as a Primary Stroke Center in 2011.

That means that our services and standards support better outcomes for stroke care. We have to follow certain protocols, such as doing a CAT scan of the head and having it read within a certain amount of time.

We also are able to provide advanced services, such as anti-thrombolytic therapy.”

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VIDEO EEG “We started providing video electroencephalograms, the gold standard in diagnosis of non-epileptic seizures, in 2015. We can provide these services for adults and children over age 10.”

VESTIBULAR DISORDER PROGRAM “Our vestibular disorder program, to address balance issues having to do with the inner ear, such as dizziness or vertigo, started in 2019. There’s a special, state-of-the-art chair, called the vestibular rotary chair, that changes position to help doctors determine the cause of a balance problem.”

“Our certification as a Primary Stroke Center means that our services and standards support better outcomes for stroke care.”

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ABOVE, Carol Welsch, who had both knees replaced at Clara Maass Medical Center and underwent rehabilitation in the Transitional Care Unit, with Frank Femino, MD, Medical Director of the Joint and Spine Institute. The Joint and Spine Institute offers a comprehensive planned course of education and treatment that minimizes pain and allows quick and convenient recovery.

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MAJOR MILESTONES IN CARE

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“The bariatrics program, started in 2009, was developed in recognition that obesity and related diseases are among the biggest health issues facing Clara Maass Medical Center’s population of patients, as is the case throughout New Jersey and the rest of the country. The bariatric program, which has been nationally recognized as a center of excellence, addresses all the issues regarding obesity, with sustained follow-up for each patient to ensure successful, long-term weight loss.”

CONGESTIVE HEART FAILURE CARDIAC REHABILITATION

PSYCHIATRIC EVALUATION SCREENING SERVICE (PESS)

“We have a congestive heart failure cardiac rehabilitation program within the hospital, thanks to a grant from the Health Care Foundation of New Jersey. We have state-of-the-art exercise equipment and a cardiac rehab program for congestive heart failure and other heart patients, who do well and achieve a much better quality of life as a result.”

“PESS is a program aimed at identifying people in crisis, and we received that designation in 2017.

We have crisis workers available in the hospital; they’ll also leave the hospital and go out to the community to see patients in their homes.” As the designated provider of immediate psychiatric care for the western portion of Essex County, the CMMC PESS program is able to get people in need to the appropriate care through its outreach services, as well as a 24-hour hotline.

“We have state-of-the-art exercise equipment and a cardiac rehabilitation program. Patients do well and achieve a much better quality of life as a result.”

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ABOVE, Sandra Gaudiosi, who was treated with an innovative approach to percutaneous coronary intervention in the Clara Maass Cardiac Catheterization Lab, regained her strength with a cardiac rehabilitation program at the medical center.

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“The bariatrics program, started in 2009, was developed in recognition that obesity and related diseases are among the biggest health issues facing the population today.”

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NEW AND COMPLEX SERVICES

CLOCKWISE, Naveen Ballem, MD, Director of Bariatric Surgery and Chief Clinical Effectiveness Officer, with cutting-edge robotic surgery technology. Paul Hahn, MD, PhD, part of the team at the renowned Eye Surgery Center, has utilized Argus II for the treatment of retinitis pigmentosa; CMMC was the only hospital in the state to offer the procedure. Edwin Amirata, MD, led a team in the removal of a patient’s gallbladder via one small incision in the belly button, using the da Vinci Surgery Robotic System.

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In addition to these highlights, Clara Maass has expanded patient care services and adopted many other new technologies over the past 25 years, including:

sophisticated treatment employs the expertise of a multidisciplinary team from the radiation oncology, medical oncology and nuclear medicine departments.

•T he Orthopedic Spine & Joint Institute, Pain Management Center, and Sleep Lab all opened in 2002. That same year, the Cancer Center added a new, state-of-theart linear accelerator with IMRT (intensity modulated radiotherapy), a treatment advance that offers precise delivery of radiation. Also that year, the Wound Center began offering hyperbaric oxygen therapy to treat serious infections and wounds that don’t heal as a result of diabetes or other skin injuries.

•A lso in 2005, surgeons at CMMC began performing more minimally invasive procedures, such as laparoscopic colon resection, and anterior laminectomies for people with back pain due to spinal injuries, herniated discs, tumors or age-related changes. The following year, 2006, a CMMC orthopedic surgeon implemented a new technique for minimally invasive total hip replacement.

• I n 2005, CMMC became the first hospital in northern NJ to offer an innovative radioimmunotherapy treatment known as Bexxar to patients with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. The treatment, which had received United States Food and Drug Administration approval in 2003, combines the use of monoclonal antibodies and radiation to specifically target and destroy cancer cells. Delivering the

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• I n 2009, CMMC’s Eye Surgery Center became the first hospital in New Jersey—and as of this writing, still the only one—to perform trabeculotomies, a type of minimally invasive glaucoma surgery. Since 2010, the hospital’s Eye Surgery Center has been performing more eye surgery of all kinds, including corneal surgery and transplants, endothelial cell implants, and amniotic membrane grafts, than any other hospital in the state.

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MOVING EVER FORWARD

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“In the future, I think the kind of care we do will evolve,” says oncologist Said Saleh, MD, who was Medical Staff President during 2016-17. “In the hospital itself, we will be working mostly in the ICU and the Emergency Department. Outside of those areas, our focus will shift even more to same-day and outpatient surgery, as well as preventive management.”

“As medical technology has evolved, Clara Maass has kept pace with leading institutions,” says James Orsini, MD, Director of Medical Oncology, who has been affiliated with Clara Maass Medical Center for more than 30 years and was Medical Staff President from 2003 to 2004. Dr. Orsini has helped lead work to increase oncology sub-specialization of doctors and surgeons, implement a multidisciplinary team approach, and establish an oncology floor.

“The care and outcomes for our patients have improved dramatically over the years,” Dr. Orsini says. “Quality of care has been the single most important aspect of the management of our patients.”

“We have evolved to be much more than a community hospital,” says internist John V. Kelly, Jr., MD, who was Medical Staff President during 2013-15. “We are well positioned to be a player in a contracting market. We’re not only a stateof-the-art facility—we’re street-smart.”

“Several hospitals in our area have closed in the last few years, while we’ve actually grown,” says Robert Brautigan, MD, Medical Staff President, 2019-2020.

“That’s a testament to our administration and medical staff. Looking towards the future, we’re going to be a pillar of the community for the next 150 years.”

“We have evolved to be much more than a community hospital. We are well positioned to be a player in a contracting market. We’re not only a state-of-the-art facility—we’re street-smart.”

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ABOVE, the past is present: internal medicine physician Andrea Barbier, DO, Medical Staff President for 2020-21 and surgeon Robert Brautigan, MD, Medical Staff President for 2019-20, in a hallway lined with portraits of past Medical Staff Presidents.

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ABOVE, Sarah Bonilla, Program Manager for the Center of Excellence for Latino Health, interacts with young people about health and wellness at a Three Kings Day event in Newark.

“We’re sensitive to the unique needs of people in our communities.

We want to create an exceptional experience and 0utcome for all.

It’s not a cookie-cutter approach.”

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SERVING A GROWING

COMMUNITY

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ew institutions can boast, as Clara Maass Medical Center can, that diversity and inclusion were literally written into their founding vision. The hospital’s mission statement from 1869 makes it clear: “This institution is organized on broad principles, admitting cheerfully the afflicted of every class, nationality and creed.”

A century and a half later, Newark is a very different city than it was at the time of the medical center’s founding—and the dedication to that goal is stronger than ever. “We’ve carried that torch and are absolutely fulfilling that mission,” says Mary Ellen Clyne, PhD, President and Chief Executive Officer of CMMC. “It doesn’t matter who you are or what you have or don’t have; our doors are open to everyone.”

While programs to serve changing patient populations and new community members have been in place for years, CMMC centralized those efforts in 2018 and hired its first Director of Diversity and Inclusion, Desyra Highsmith Holcomb. She oversees programs to address the respect, inclusion and engagement of patients, staff and the community.

“We’re sensitive to the unique needs of people in our communities,” says Highsmith Holcomb. “We want to create an exceptional experience and outcome for all. It’s not a cookie-cutter approach.”

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THE LANGUAGE OF GOOD HEALTH

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In recent years the Latino/ Hispanic population in the area has significantly increased. To ensure that community is being well served by the hospital, in 2016 CMMC created the Center of Excellence for Latino Health.

CMMC physician Thomas Ortiz, MD, Medical Director of the center, put together an advisory board of community leaders to identify and prioritize health issues to be addressed.

“Our staff has received special training so that the entire hospital community is more sensitive to disparities in healthcare,” Dr. Ortiz says. “Our promotional and educational materials are in both English and Spanish. We’ve focused on hiring more bilingual staff at every level of the organization, to ensure more effective communication with our patients and their families.”

In fact, the goal is for everyone coming to the hospital to feel immediately welcome, no matter what language they speak. Employees have also been specially trained to translate medical terms, so they can help explain conditions and procedures to patients

who prefer to communicate in other languages. For less common languages, a specialty hospital app makes medical communication possible.

Because the Center of Excellence for Latino Health is designed to help the community access healthcare and close the gap in health disparities, preventive care is highly encouraged. In addition, the center works to let the Latino community know how they can take advantage of CMMC’s many resources.

Attendance at places of worship in the community is high, so the center works with local religious institutions to provide health information.

One of its first programs was a health ministry at St. Lucy’s Church in Newark. There, the outreach program began with monthly screenings. Bilingual nurses from CMMC visited after Spanish-language Masses to offer parishioners a chance to check their blood pressure and glucose levels. The ministry also offered salsa-themed and Zumba exercise classes.

Program Manager Sarah Bonilla, MPH, works with parishioners to

serve healthier food at church events, such as offering whole wheat instead of white bread, chicken instead of fried pork, and water instead of sugary beverages.

The Center of Excellence for Latino Health also runs smaller outreach programs at several other area churches and hopes to add more. “Screenings and health fairs are always available,” Bonilla says. “This program is about building healthy communities together.” Thinking even longer-term, the center is actively involved in efforts to encourage young Latino students to enter health professions.

CMMC also has a faith ministry, including the Clara Maass Interfaith Advisory Council, comprised of local faith leaders. One of the council’s initiatives, Faith and Futures, provides job readiness training.

Jobs provide stability and health insurance and enable people to focus on themselves and their health, rather than worrying about where the next meal will come from, Highsmith Holcomb explains. “We see employment as an additional way to improve the lives of those that we care for.”

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ABOVE AND AT LEFT, community members at St. Lucy’s Church in Newark at a healthy cooking demonstration given

by Sarah Bonilla. NEAR LEFT, Margarita Muniz, MPA, Chairperson, Center of Excellence for Latino Health Advisory Board; Wilfredo Caraballo, Esq., a member of the CMMC Board of Trustees and the RWJBH Board of Trustees, and a member of the CELH Advisory Board; Mary Ellen Clyne, President and Chief Executive Officer, CMMC; Belinda Caraballo; Robert Gaccione, Esq., Board Chairman, CMMC Board of Trustees.

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“We’ve focused on hiring more bilingual staff at every level of the organization to ensure more effective communication with our patients and their families.”

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“It’s such a pleasure to be able interact with people from our community in such a positive way.”

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WELLNESS FOR WOMEN The Women’s Health Center at Clara Maass, established in 1996, delivers a wide range of screenings, preventive programs, and obstetrical and perinatal health services.“The center really focused on the patient as consumer,” says Kathy Lesko, who was the Director of Marketing at Clara Maass from 1996 to 2005.

“Many women were coming in for well woman visits, and that was taken into consideration.”

Today, the Women’s Health Center is part of CMMC’s Health

and Wellness Center.

“We also provide educational programs and community outreach,” says Annette Cozzarelli-Franklin, MD, Medical Director of Women’s Health Services. “The center helps fulfill the community’s needs for information about all aspects of women’s health.”

CMMC women’s health experts go into the community to address groups on subjects such as cardiac disease, stress reduction, healthy eating and more.

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OPPOSITE, CMMC sponsored a women’s health fair in North Arlington in 2007. “It’s such a pleasure to be able to interact with people from our community in such a positive way,” says Margaret VanDerlyn, LPN, Administrative Assistant at CMMC, third from left. ABOVE, the Women’s Health Center ribbon-cutting in 1996. From left to right, Edwin Amirata, MD, Board member Charlotte Sibley, former CMMC President and CEO Robert Curtis, Susan Ford Bales, daughter of former U.S. President Gerald Ford, Annette Cozzarelli-Franklin, MD. AT RIGHT, outreach to the community includes breast health education; demonstrating breast self-exam at a fair in Bloomfield.

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PROUD TO BE INCLUSIVE

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The hospital’s employee resource group, PROUD (Promoting Respect, Outreach, Understanding and Dignity) aims to include and support LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer or Questioning) employees and community members.

“The group is composed not only of employees that identify with the LGBTQ community, but also those who want to know how to deliver inclusive care to all,” says Highsmith Holcomb. “Our LGBTQ employees know that they are valued for who they are, and that they can be completely authentic when they come to work.”

In-house training at CMMC helps to ensure that encounters between members of the LGBTQ community and hospital employees are always sensitive and respectful.

“All the employees, including the medical staff, have received training in how to ask the right questions about gender identity during contact with patients,” says Alfred Torres, MBA, Chief Human Resources Officer at CMMC. “If you’re a transgender man, you can come to CMMC for a mammogram or Pap smear, and we’ll make sure that you are fully supported and treated with dignity and respect. That’s important, because we want people to have access to the quality care they require.”

The hospital takes that message to the community. In 2018, the medical center began the tradition of flying the flag for Pride Month and participating in local pride parades. “CMMC has participated in the annual LGBTQ Pride Parade and Festival in Asbury Park and the Gay Pride Parade in Newark,” says Highsmith Holcomb. “We’ve also partnered with a local group, Bloomfield Pride, sponsoring their annual summer picnic, and we have begun to cultivate a relationship with the North Jersey Community Research Initiative. Our reach is beyond the walls of the hospital to help people in the community know that all are welcome here to receive quality care.”

Adds Clyne, “The Medical Center also supports an LGBTQ shelter in East Orange— where nurse Clara Maass was born—for adolescents who’ve been displaced from their homes because they came out as gay.”

Thanks to these efforts, the medical center has earned recognition as an LGBTQ Healthcare Equality Leader by the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) Foundation, the educational arm of the country’s largest LGBTQ civil rights organization.

In 2019, Clara Maass Medical Center celebrated National Pride Month along with its community partners, Bloomfield Pride and the North Jersey Community Research Initiative, by raising a rainbow-colored flag at the hospital. AT RIGHT, Desyra Highsmith Holcomb, Director of Diversity and Inclusion, holds the flag with community partners and Mary Ellen Clyne, PhD, President and CEO. Following the flag raising, CMMC hosted a reception featuring rainbowthemed cookies and lemonade.

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The employee group PROUD aims to include and support LGBTQ employees and community members. In-house training helps to ensure that encounters between members of the LGBTQ community and hospital employees are always sensitive and respectful.

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ON THESE PAGES, scenes from a recent Senior Supper Club for Health event, which featured a nutritious dinner, a talk by John Fontanetta, MD, Chairman of Emergency Medicine, and some rousing rounds of bingo. The monthly dinners are complimentary and usually have a waiting list.

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GOOD HEALTH IS AGELESS If local seniors can’t go to CMMC, then CMMC goes to them. Clara Cares is a program that supports aging in place, providing care to the homebound elderly.

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Clara Maass Medical Center has many programs aimed specifically at older patients and senior members of the community. For instance, HELP (Hospital Elder Life Program) aids hospitalized patients who may become confused, which could happen as a result of an ICU stay, antibiotics, steroids, “or sometimes just from a change in location,” says CMMC Vice President of Medical Affairs and Chief Medical Officer Frank Mazzarella, MD. “HELP is a volunteer program, and these volunteers go out and speak with patients, as well as do music therapy and other activities to help keep their minds sharp.”

The hospital also has a Senior Supper Club for Health Series, held the first Monday of every month in the CMMC cafeteria, which provides a healthy sit-down dinner, with desserts prepared by culinary arts students in Belleville. “There’s always a great turnout for that, and a waiting

list to get in,” says Dr. Mazzarella.

“And we have a speaker who comes every month. It can be a cardiologist, or, for instance, if it’s during breast cancer awareness month, a breast surgeon.”

If local seniors can’t go to CMMC, then CMMC goes to them.

Clara Cares is a program that supports aging in place, providing care to the homebound elderly. A physician, advanced practice nurse, medical assistant and pharmacist regularly visit nine local apartment buildings that house seniors. “In the past, these patients didn’t have access to care, and would come into the hospital with all kinds of medical problems that had not been addressed,” says Dr. Mazzarella.

“Now they’re getting timely follow-up care and are doing well.”

Medical care is also brought to the community via the WAVE (Wellness Assessment Van for Elders) for Medicare patients. The van, carrying medical equipment as well as personnel, can be driven to a senior center, church hall, parking lot, or anywhere there’s a need. “These assessments are different from routine physicals,” says Dr. Mazzarella. “There are questions about sleeping, nutrition, depression. We do things like bone density tests. The focus is really on wellness.” The WAVE program received the New Jersey Hospital Association’s 2017 HRET Community Outreach Award.

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Each year, a number of high school juniors and seniors, male and female, are assigned to a woman physician mentor who helps arrange special rotations for them.

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FINDING THE NEXT GENERATION OF PROVIDERS The Women Physicians’ Mentoring Program has created a way for students at Belleville High School who are interested in health professions to learn firsthand what life is like at a busy hospital.

The program is the brainchild of Annette Cozzarelli-Franklin, MD, an internal medicine specialist and Director of Women’s Health Services. “My dad was a physician in Belleville,” she explains, “and when he passed, we started a scholarship in his name.

Looking at the applications for the scholarship each year, I saw how many students were interested in health and medical fields.”

Each year, a number of high school juniors and seniors, male and female, are assigned to a woman physician mentor—about a dozen participate in the program—who helps arrange special rotations for them. “We try to rotate them throughout the hospital so they get exposure to different aspects of medicine, and even to hospital administration,” explains Dr. Cozzarelli-Franklin. “The students can do a community health rotation, or they can follow one of the finance people at the hospital, or they can spend time in different departments like the obstetrics clinic or the Emergency Department.”

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HEALTHIER TOGETHER CMMC’s commitment to the community and to diversity and inclusion is deep and genuine. “It’s not just words,” says Al Torres.

“I remember one of the church meetings where a woman in the audience stuck around afterwards and came up to Desyra [Highsmith Holcomb]. When Desyra asked how she could help, the woman said she was homeless. Before you know it, even though it was late on a Friday

night, we got a social worker involved to get her to a shelter. We came through.

“There’s a saying that goes, ‘They rise, we rise,’” Torres continues.

“You don’t make people well just with medication. We’re aiming for an intentional and holistic approach to creating the right environment so everyone can thrive and get better— one that allows us and our patients to practice healthcare the right way.”

“There’s a saying that goes, ‘They rise, we rise.’

You don’t make people well just with medication.

We’re aiming for an intentional and holistic approach.”

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OPPOSITE PAGE, students who participated in the 2019 Women Physicians’ Mentoring Program. Annette Cozzarelli-Franklin, MD, Medical Director of Women’s Health Services and the program’s founder, is second from left, second row; Connie Snelgrove, APN, is with students in the photo at right. THIS PAGE, community members at an event hosted by the Center of Excellence for Latino Health at St. Lucy’s Church.

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One word comes up over and over again when talking to people who work at Clara Maass Medical Center: family. The sense of belonging that was present at the hospital’s founding 150 years ago is still present today.

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“For years, we had a choir that sang every year at the Martin Luther King, Jr., Day celebration,” says longtime choir member Erithea Stone. “We had competitions with other hospital choirs in the system.” ABOVE, the choir sang the “Star-Spangled Banner” at a Newark Bears game in 1999. Choir members shown include Gil Ancheta, the Rev. Dr. Julia Bogan, Choir Director (in front), Jennie Drew, Oleeta McDonald, Debbie McInerney, Alba Ortiz, Rita Padilla, Daniel Roche, Hodges Sears, Erithea Stone and Hazel Williams. “We had members representing every department,” says the Rev. Dr. Bogan, who wrote a song for the choir called “The Spirit of Clara Maass.”

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10 A CLOSE, CARING FAMILY: THE CLARA MAASS

CULTURE

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ne word comes up over and over again when talking to people who work at Clara Maass Medical Center: family. While that might seem an unlikely term for a medical center that employs 700 physicians and more than 2,000 employees, the sense of belonging that was present at the hospital’s founding 150 years ago is still present today.

“We hear all the time that the hospital has very much a family feeling, that people care about each other, and we’re here to support everyone who comes through our doors in any way we possibly can,” says CMMC President and CEO Mary Ellen Clyne, PhD. “Even vendors, corporate people from other institutions, people from regulatory agencies like The Joint Commission who are here to inspect us, tell us that.”

“People here really care about each other,” says Frank Mazzarella, MD, CMMC’s Vice President of Medical Affairs and Chief Medical Officer. “It is not unusual to know people by name and say hello to them. That includes the medical

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staff, which is very invested in Clara Maass Medical Center. There is a close relationship between the administration and hospital staff.”

“It’s a family-oriented culture and community,” confirms Desyra Highsmith Holcomb, CMMC’s Director of Diversity and Inclusion.

“People are very warm and welcoming. Everyone sincerely cares about the patients we see, and cares about one another. Our employee population is one of the most diverse in the RWJBH system, and that makes them that much more sensitive to the diverse community that we serve.”

The sense of unity and loyalty among the staff emanates from the top down. “I come from corporate America, so when I first came here it was culture shock” says Al Torres, Chief Human Resources Officer at CMMC. “There’s much less of a sense of hierarchy here. If you see

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our president walking down the hallway and there’s a piece of paper on the floor, she’ll pick it up and do something with it rather than say that it’s someone else’s job.

And if someone who works in the cafeteria has an idea about patient safety or satisfaction, she’ll email the president or just pop into her office and say something. People genuinely care for each other and about what they do; they’re passionate about it.”

The family feeling does more than keep medical staff and other employees happy—many believe it has a direct effect on patient care. “If you’re happy and positive and energetic, you will take care of patients much better than if you’re not,” says Torres. “Create the right environment and you engage employees who will create the right patient experience and give 150 percent.”

“Create the right environment, and you engage employees, who will give 150 percent.”

The last Clara Maass School of Nursing class graduated in 1993, but many of its alumni make their professional home at the medical center to this day. AT RIGHT, from left, Terry Wescott, RN, Case Management, Class of ’77; Susan Gallina, RN, MSN, Director of Perioperative Services, Class of ‘84; Deborah Dower Dillon, BSN, RN, Same-Day Stay, Class of ’83; Alrey Salazar, RN, OR, Class of ’88; Joanne Reed, RN, OR, Class of ‘84; Trish Aquino, RN, OR, Class of ’76; Deborah Sheridan, RN, MAS, Nurse Manager, Class of ’77; Dolores Payerl, RN, Telemetry, Class of ’77; Michele Dickinson, RN, Same-Day Stay, Class of ’88; Yvonne Terrell, MSN, ANP-BC, Transitional Care, Class of ’88; Sharon McEvoy, RN, MAS, BSN, Director of Quality, Class of ’82. Seated: JoAnne Penn, MA, RN-BC, Director, New Jersey State Nurses Association Class of ’68.

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A LONG-SERVING STAFF Not surprisingly for such an environment, many employees stay at the hospital for many years.

“There are a lot of long-tenured employees at Clara Maass,” says Michael McTigue, Vice President of Information Technology for RWJBarnabas Health. “I grew up with Clara. I started when I was 17 and left there [for Saint Barnabas Medical Center] when I was 47.

Recently I was with my daughter, walking down a Clara Maass corridor.

I said to her, ‘Every picture on the wall here is a picture of the medical staff, and I know every one of them.’

Many of their sons and daughters are

working there now, too. My wife also worked at Clara Maass—I met her there. And I try to go back every year in April when they give out Employee Service Awards.”

Rudolph Messina, MD, former Medical Director of Pediatric Services, has been caring for the youngest patients at Clara Maass for more than five decades, and was Medical Staff President during 1986-87. Today, he works primarily in the nursery. “I make sure that when mothers and babies go home, they have a doctor to follow up with and a discharge summary that gives them all the information that

is necessary to know,” he says.

Andrea Barbier, DO, is another long-tenured employee. The internal medicine physician and Medical Staff President for 2020-21 has been working at Clara Maass Medical Center since 1997 and grew up across the street.

Says Dr. Barbier, “I’ve seen Clara—that’s what we locals call her—grow from a small community hospital to a medical center by its truest definition: a healthcare organization that provides services more complex than those provided by a traditional community hospital.”

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“We celebrate all the holidays.

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FAMILIES CELEBRATE TOGETHER While Employee Service Awards are one way to honor and support the hospital staff, there are others.

The nursing staff, for instance, gives out a “Daisy Award” once a month to a nurse who’s been singled out for recognition by a patient or staff member.

“We recently celebrated National Hospital Week on all three shifts,” says Clyne. “So many of the people on the night shift have been here for a long time, and we know each other.

As they go through the food line, I can ask them how they’re doing—How’s the family? What’s happening with the children? I know them so well, and they know I genuinely care about them.”

Clyne is a firm believer in these celebrations. “This may sound silly,” she admits, “but to me, food is love. Every time we get notified of an award, we’re out there on all three shifts

serving ice cream. Who doesn’t want ice cream? I’ll squeeze out whipped cream for you and put sprinkles on it. Those are moments of thankfulness and letting the employees know that they’re the ones making this happen. They’re doing the heavy lifting to put us on the map as a nationally recognized healthcare organization providing excellent quality care at every level. So we are rewarding and recognizing them, letting them know they’ve done a great job.”

While there are many awards from outside organizations to celebrate at Clara Maass Medical Center, there are also many holidays to mark.

A new initiative called SPHERE (Sharing Perspective, History, Experience through Respectful Exchange) gives employees an opportunity to

share their heritage and culture with their co-workers. “The entire hospital, and community members as well, join in celebrations to learn more about other cultures,” says Highsmith Holcomb. Caribbean Heritage Day, Black History Month, Hispanic Heritage Month, Pride Month, Women’s History Month, St. Patrick’s Day and Asian Pacific Heritage Month are only a few of the observances at CMMC. “We celebrate all holidays— Filipino holidays, Kwanzaa, tree lighting for Christmas, menorah lighting for Hanukkah—you name it, we celebrate it,” says Clyne. “In 2018, for the first time we did a Diwali celebration.

Somebody was doing intricate handmade henna tattoos. They taught us a special dance, and employees made delicious food for everybody to try.”

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OPPOSITE PAGE, ABOVE, celebrating the Dominican Day parade, one of many parades in which CMMC participates. BOTTOM ROW, Erithea Stone sings at the 2019 Martin Luther King, Jr. Day celebration; playing Santa; logo for the Heart Hugs Ball; a meal for employees to kick off the holiday season, 2019; lighting a menorah.

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FAMILIES SUPPORT EACH OTHER

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For obvious reasons, caring for sick people can be emotionally stressful, and CMMC has a variety of ways to help the staff cope with the pressure.

“The hospital has so many programs,” says Debbie Sheridan, RN, MAS, a Nurse Manager at CMMC (and Clara Maass School of Nursing graduate, Class of 1977). “There are programs about worklife balance and how to manage it. There are stress relief programs, yoga, and Code Lavender.”

Code Lavender is a way to help nurses when they’ve dealt with a difficult situation or lost a patient. “It’s a way to decompress,” explains Sharon McEvoy, RN, MAS, BSN, Director of Quality (and also a Class of 1982 Clara Maass School of Nursing grad). “If a Code Lavender is called, the supervisor comes, as well as anyone who wants to be involved in the debriefing. It is a way to support each other.”

Schwartz Rounds, a program similar to Code Lavender, was developed at the Schwartz Center for Compassionate Healthcare in Boston. “With Schwartz Rounds, you take a situation from six months to a year or so ago that affected people, and talk briefly about what happened, and how you felt in that situation,” says McEvoy. “It’s another way to cope, de-stress and feel supported.”

The medical center recently created a Tranquility Garden with a waterscape as a peaceful place for employees, volunteers and visitors to sit and take a needed break.

The Tranquility Garden was built with contributions from employees and the Clara Maass Auxiliary. Donations are another way that employees support the hospital and each other.

“We ask employees to make donations back to the hospital, and we’ve been able to do some phenomenal things with their buy-in,” says Clyne.

“They put money toward the renovation of our cafeteria, and toward our employee gym, which employees, physicians and volunteers can all enjoy to stay healthy and well.”

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Over the 74 years of its existence, CMMC Auxiliary volunteers have raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for the hospital’s projects and programs.

ABOVE, Auxiliary President Angela Cuozzo-Zarro with Mary Ellen Clyne, PhD, President and Chief Executive Officer.

AT RIGHT, the late Marie Vander Zwan received the New Jersey Governor’s Jefferson Award in November 2018 for her 30 years of volunteer service to Clara Maass Medical Center. BELOW, over the years, the Auxiliary sent out regular newsletters to its volunteers.

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AN AUXILIARY PART OF THE FAMILY The CMMC Auxiliary is the medical center’s volunteer organization, a group of dedicated women in the community who give their time and effort to raise money for the hospital. Over the 74 years the organization has been in existence, it has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars through vendor sales—clothes, jewelry, coats, perfume—with a percentage of the proceeds coming back to fund a CMMC project.

One of the Auxiliary’s annual projects is the Holiday Tree Lighting, including Christmas, Hanukkah and Kwanzaa lights adorning a huge pine tree near the lower entrance to the

hospital. Hundreds of people attend each year. School choirs come to entertain the crowd with holiday carols. Hot chocolate is served. Employees can buy lights in honor or in memory of a loved one. The tree lighting was a pet project of Marie Vander Zwan, who was president of the Auxiliary for eight years and a volunteer at Clara Maass for more than 30 years. Marie Vander Zwan passed away in March 2019, but during her lifetime she had received the prestigious New Jersey Governor’s Jefferson Award, an honor bestowed on New Jerseyans who embody the spirit of civic engagement. “She was a wonderful woman,” says Angela Cuozzo-Zarro, who has

been president of the Auxiliary since 2007.

The Auxiliary now numbers almost 50 people, and meets five times a year, Cuozzo-Zarro explains. Money raised from the tree lighting goes back to the Clara Maass Medical Center Foundation to be distributed where it’s most needed. In addition to the tree lighting, the Auxiliary also donates candy baskets to different departments in the hospital, hosts a baby shower for needy families welcoming a new child, and gives out two $1,000 scholarships each year. “And we’re planning to start a new scholarship in Marie Vander Zwan’s name, too,” Cuozzo-Zarro adds.

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A BIG, EXTENDED FAMILY

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Clara Maass takes the idea of family and extends it to patients at the hospital, their friends and loved ones, and the surrounding community, too.

For instance, when the West Hudson hospital in Kearny was merged into CMMC in 2004, staff went out of the way to make the patients who were being transferred feel welcome. “I went to one of the old Bloomfield embroidery shops and got ‘CMMC’ embroidered on blankets for every patient who was going to be transported from Kearny to Clara Maass,” remembers Kathy Lesko, who was Director of Marketing and Public Relations at CMMC from 1996 to 2005. “That was their gift.” Lesko also remembers a very sick patient on the Oncology Unit whose fiancé wanted to get married. “So we made arrangements for them to be married in the unit’s atrium with a wonderful little ceremony.”

Likewise, early in 2019, the staff of CMMC’s Transitional Care Unit threw a surprise 98th birthday

party—complete with cake, candles, balloons and the gift of a handmade shawl—for a patient who was disappointed that she wouldn’t be home to celebrate.

Many patients remain part of the family long after they’re discharged from the hospital, returning regularly for the annual Cancer Survivors Day or Heart Hugs Ball for Cardiac Survivors.

In the “A Star is Born” program, new parents can purchase a star with their baby’s name, to be etched on the hospital wall. Stars also recognize influential people who were born at CMMC, including NJ Lieutenant Governor Sheila Oliver, local Councilman Vincent Cozzarelli and Essex County Freeholder Brendan Gill.

The hospital offers hundreds of health-related events for the community each year, including free seminars and lectures, blood pressure and cholesterol screenings, walk-in clinics for flu shots, and school visits for health professionals to talk to students.

Many patients remain part of the family long after they’re discharged from the hospital, returning for the annual Cancer Survivors Day or Heart Hugs Ball for Cardiac Survivors.

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TOP, Cheryl K. Young, a volunteer at CMMC and founder and president of The Preston Young Cancer Awareness–I Am You nonprofit organization, celebrates in style at the annual Cancer Survivors Day. BOTTOM, the oncology team at Survivors Day, circa 2016, including Lea Rodriguez, Josephine Gesuden, Joanna Tortora, Teresita Tan, Maricella Tobago, Jane Macasieb, Vilma Furigay, Marisa Dizon, Sabratha Thomas and Raylene Langish

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REMEMBERING THE FAMILY MATRIARCH Clara Maass Medical Center has a Garden of Remembrance with bricks in place to remember employees who have passed away. One family member who will never be forgotten is Clara Louise Maass, the young woman who unknowingly started this big family when she gave her life volunteering for experiments to study yellow fever.

Clara Maass is buried only a few miles from the hospital, in Fairmount Cemetery in Newark. Hospital staffers regularly lay flowers on the site and maintain her grave.

A museum in the medical center is dedicated to remembering her life and her contributions to the field of medicine. In 2018, Clara Louise Maass was inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame.

“Several years ago, we entertained visitors from Mexico who were relatives of Clara Maass,” says Dr. Mazzarella. “We toured her museum and and showed them her gravesite. It was a moving experience and brought us a sense of Clara Maass, the person.” Those visitors are now part of the family, too.

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BELOW, the gravesites of Clara Louise Maass and her parents are maintained by the medical center.

In 2018, officials marked the 117th anniversary of Clara’s death in observance of her induction into the New Jersey Hall of Fame. AT RIGHT, artifacts on display in the Clara Maass Museum.

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A museum in the medical center is dedicated to remembering the life of Clara Louise Maass and her contributions to the field of medicine.

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A VISION FOR THE FUTURE

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ne of the hallmarks of Clara Maass Medical Center throughout its history has been the manner in which it has always taken care of its community.

As that community evolves, so too does this institution, always aligning itself with the needs of the people in its service area.

At the same time, Clara Maass has been a great corporate citizen.

It has collaborated, cooperated and supported its sibling institutions, and has contributed greatly to the overall strength of the RWJBarnabas Health system.

As we celebrate the 150th anniversary of Clara Maass Medical Center’s founding, we look forward to the future, and the changes we will be celebrating 25 years from now.

Our goal as a health system is to care for individuals in a holistic way.

We will help them stay well and then

treat them as they develop clinical needs that require intervention. In order to do this, you have to establish trust, which Clara Maass has done so effectively.

At the same time, we as a healthcare system will become increasingly invested in social services along with clinical service. We will become more ambulatory in our footprint and have more outpatient services, spend more time delivering care in people’s homes and work with various local groups to address social determinants of health.

We will also make accessibility as easy as possible through digital connections. Healthcare is going to see big strides in video consultations between physicians and consumers, and in the ability to convey biomedical information for remote consultations. At RWJBarnabas Health, all hospitals have achieved

the Most Wired designation for our advanced use of information technology, and we are serving consumers with the Health Connect appointment-booking app and the TeleMed online consultation service.

On the medical level, Clara Maass and its sibling institutions will continue to have the newest and best technology in every area— from robotic surgery to the use of gene analysis to create better, more personalized medications and therapies.

In each of these areas—holistic care, digital communication, medical technology—RWJBarnabas Health will continue to be a leader. Our mission is to do whatever we can to make a person’s life happier and healthier. Clara Maass Medical Center, along with all our institutions, is well positioned to do what has to be done to make that a reality.

BARRY H. OSTROWSKY

PRESIDENT AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER RWJBARNABAS HEALTH

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A TOAST TO CLARA MAASS MEDICAL CENTER The 150th anniversary was celebrated with the “A Very Tasteful Experience” gala at Nanina’s in the Park in Belleville on November 13, 2019.

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ABOVE, TOP: the Hudson Horns entertaining at the gala; TOP ROW, CLOCKWISE, John V. Kelly, Jr., MD, third from left, with his family and Michael Gentile, MD, third from right, and Good Day New York sportscaster Tina Cervasio, at far right; Galen Johnson, Director of Youth Leadership Development at The North Ward Center and Kayla Williams, Director of Community Outreach, The North Ward Center; Barry H. Ostrowsky, President and Chief Executive Officer, RWJBarnabas Health; Teresa DiElmo, MSN, RN, Chief Nursing Officer, Clara Maass Medical Center and her husband, Michael Gould. BOTTOM ROW, LEFT TO RIGHT: Robert Brautigan, MD, with his wife Lourdes and sportscaster Tina Cervasio and her husband Kevin McKearney; Donna Mattia, Executive Assistant, Clara Maass Medical Center Foundation, and her daughter Stephanie greet celebrants; Julie Derosa and and her husband Robert Gaccione, Jr., Vice President, Clara Maass Medical Center Foundation Board of Trustees, co-chairs of the 150th Anniversary Celebration, with Robert Gaccione, Esq., Chairman, Clara Maass Medical Center Board of Trustees and member, Foundation Board of Trustees; Barry Ostrowsky with Fran Adubato and Mary Ellen Clyne, PhD, President and Chief Executive Officer, Clara Maass Medical Center.

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LEADERSHIP THROUGH THE YEARS

CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICERS 2010Mary Ellen Clyne, PhD President and Chief Executive Officer 1998-2010 Thomas Biga President and Chief Executive Officer 1983-1998 Robert Curtis President and Chief Executive Officer

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1952-1983 Albin H. Oberg President and Executive Director 1950-1952 Robert Schnitzer Executive Director 1946-1950 Charles Lee Executive Director 1943-1946 Anna C.M. Nelson Executive Director 1933-1943 Catherine Guenther, RN Superintendent 1931-1933 Swea C. Johnson, RN Superintendent 1930-1931 Catherine Potaka, RN Superintendent

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1923-1929 Leopoldine Guinther, RN Superintendent 1908-1923 Wilhelmine Kobbeloer, RN Superintendent

CHAIRMEN, BOARD OF TRUSTEES 2015Robert Gaccione, Esq. 2009-2014 John Hopkins 2001-2008 Thomas Kelaher 1998-2000 Ronald J. Del Mauro 1994-1997 John K. Roessner, III 1993-1994 S. Thomas Aitken 1975-1992 Henry C. Pfaff, Jr. 1973-1975 Archie C. Barbata 1958-1972 John F. Kidde 1949-1957 Harry A. Trotter

1947-1948 Joseph Dreyer

2005-2006 Arthur I. Lester, MD

1976-1977 Robert J. Lorello, MD

1943-1946 Carl W. Schumacher

2003-2004 James M. Orsini, MD

1974-1975 Philip Grundfest, MD

1930-1943 Herman C. Schuetz

2001-2002 Venkat Gandhi, MD

1972-1973 Albert E. Del Negro, MD

1919?-1930 August Goertz

1999-2000 Patrick N. Ciccone, MD

1970-1971 Robert E. Rich, MD

1895-1912?

Elias Berla

1996-1998 Mario Criscito, MD

1969 Robert E. Fullilove, Jr., MD

1870-?

Christian Miller

1994-1995 Philip Rispoli, MD

1968 William Greifinger, MD

1992-1993 Milton Prystowsky, MD

1967 William H. Fost, MD

1990-1991 Cono Pecora, MD

1960-1966 Raphael E. Remondelli, MD

MEDICAL STAFF PRESIDENTS 2020Andrea Barbier, DO 2018-2019 Robert Brautigan, MD 2016-2017 Said Saleh, MD 2013-2015 John V. Kelly, Jr., MD 2011-2012 Michael R. Gentile, MD 2009-2010 Edwin A. Amirata, MD 2007-2008 Michael A. Pontoriero, MD

1988-1989 Robert Gialanella, MD

1951-1959 William D. Crecca, MD

1986-1987 Rudolph V. Messina, MD

1951-1951 Paul Menk, MD

1984-1985 Gerard T. Cicalese, MD

1941-1951 Richard Diffenbach, MD

1982-1983 Peter Amirata, MD

1927-1941 Francis R. Haussling, MD

1980-1981 Joel Cherashore, MD

1905-1926 Edward Staehlin, MD

1978-1979 Michael H. Scoppetuolo, MD

1901-1905 Richard Dieffenbach, MD

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Names are included in lists when information is available. Unfortunately, many early records appear to have been destroyed in a fire on the hospital campus in 1950.

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CONTRIBUTORS We thank the following individuals for contributing to the preparation of this book.

PHYSICIANS

Andrea Barbier, DO Robert Brautigan, MD Patrick Ciccone, MD Annette Cozzarelli-Franklin, MD John Fontanetta, MD John V. Kelly, Jr., MD Arthur I. Lester, MD Frank Mazzarella, MD Rudolph Messina, MD James Orsini, MD Thomas Ortiz, MD Said Saleh, MD

NURSES

Susan Gallina, RN, MSN Sharon McEvoy, RN, MAS, BSN Leticia Morgan, BSN, RN, CRN JoAnne Penn, MA, RN-BC Pia Salazar, RN Debbie Sheridan, RN, MAS

ADMINISTRATORS AND STAFF

Javier Alvarez Thomas Biga Julia Bogan Sarah Bonilla Mary Ellen Clyne, PhD Angela Cuozzo-Zarro Ronald J. Del Mauro Robert Gaccione, Esq. Robert Gamba Ellen Greene Desyra Highsmith Holcomb Thomas Kelaher Kathy Lesko Tania Manago Tess Medina Michael McTigue Stacie J. Newton Jodi Ombaldo Erithea Stone Alfred Torres Cathy Toscano Margaret VanDerlyn Dennis Wilson, Jr. Joseph Wojtecki

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Information for Chapters 1 through 5 and earlier leadership years has been taken from the book “Clara Maass Medical Center: Building Bridges for 125 Years,” published in 1993.

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CLARA MAASS MEDICAL CENTER

150 YEARS OF CARE AND COMPASSION

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