At Cooper Norcross Health, emergency department leaders faced a challenge familiar to health systems nationwide: maintaining a strong patient experience amid high patient volumes, throughput constraints, and significant inpatient boarding. 

As South Jersey’s leading academic health system and home to the region’s only Level I trauma center, Cooper Norcross Health in Camden operates an emergency department that serves approximately 300 patients each day, creating pressure on both patients and care teams.

With such a fast pace of service, Cooper’s leaders recognized that improving the emergency department experience required more than operational fixes alone.

Through its Experience Excellence Program and a partnership with NRC Health, Cooper brought together clinical leaders, support departments, and frontline teams to redesign communication, comfort, and service recovery processes.

Using real-time patient feedback from NRC Health, the organization identified barriers, implemented targeted improvements, and continuously refined the experience for patients, families, and employees.

Key Takeaways

• Improved emergency department likelihood-to-recommend scores from below the 40th percentile nationally to above the 79th percentile nationally, in one year.
• Raised physician/provider communication scores to above the 95th percentile nationally through a multidisciplinary approach focused on communication, comfort, and proactive rounding.
• Quadrupled survey participation using NRC Health’s digital-first survey methodology, giving leaders faster access to actionable patient feedback.
• Expanded a pilot program into a team of more than 40 patient advocates and clinical ambassadors, reducing non-clinical burdens on care teams while improving the patient experience.

Based in Camden, New Jersey, Cooper Norcross Health is the leading academic health system in South Jersey with three hospitals, more than 130 outpatient offices, seven regional campuses, and seven urgent care centers.

The health system delivers more than 2.54 million patient visits annually and employs nearly 14,000 team members, including approximately 2,200 nurses, 1,200 physicians, and 700 advanced practice providers. As the clinical partner of Cooper Medical School of Rowan University, Cooper combines patient care, education, and research under a mission to serve, heal, and educate.

Recognized as the number one hospital in South Jersey by U.S. News & World Report, Cooper Norcross Health in Camden is also home to South Jersey’s only Level I trauma center and the Philadelphia region’s busiest trauma center.

Cooper Norcross Health’s emergency department delivers exceptional clinical care in one of the most complex care environments in healthcare. However, leaders recognized that patients and families needed more communication, more updates, and more support during their visit.

Like many health systems, Cooper faced challenges with patient throughput and inpatient boarding. Approximately 300 patients move through the emergency department each day, while admitted patients often remain in the department awaiting inpatient beds.

These realities created pressure on clinical teams and limited their ability to provide the non-clinical communication and comfort support patients often needed.

“Team members really consistently shared with us that because of the volume, they were not able to do some of that traditional emotional kind of experience—purposeful rounding,” said Erin Shipley, CEN, MSN, RN, Vice President of Consumer Experience.

The challenge was not clinical quality. It was finding new ways to ensure that patients felt informed, supported, and seen during long and often stressful emergency department visits.

Cooper approached improvement as a shared responsibility rather than a departmental initiative.

The organization convened a broad coalition of stakeholders, including emergency department leadership, transport, security, healthcare access, food and nutrition services, behavioral health teams, and other operational departments. Together, these teams identified barriers and co-designed solutions.

Rather than directing departments on what changes to make, experience leaders asked stakeholders what support they needed to better serve patients.

“We led with them,” said Shipley. “We said, ‘You guys know the barriers. If you had three things that you would change or do differently, what would you do?’”

This collaborative process became the foundation of Cooper’s Emergency Department Experience Excellence Program.

The Experience Excellence Program introduced several new support roles and workflows designed to improve communication while reducing non-clinical burdens on care teams.

NRC Health provided the feedback infrastructure that helped Cooper move from observation to action.

Through NRC Health’s digital-first patient experience feedback, Cooper significantly increased patient participation while receiving patient feedback much closer to the care experience.

Leaders gained access to real-time comments, alerts, and actionable insights that helped teams identify experience gaps and monitor progress.

Cooper’s leaders also leveraged patient comments to drive process improvement. Rather than relying solely on scores, teams analyzed themes in patient feedback and used alerts to proactively identify patients who might need additional support after discharge.

Real-time alert management became particularly valuable in situations where patients indicated unresolved clinical needs after leaving the emergency department, allowing leaders to respond quickly and support safe care transitions.

The partnership and Experience Excellence Program delivered measurable improvements in patient experience performance.

Beyond the metrics, Cooper’s leaders observed improvements that mattered deeply to patients, families, and care teams.

Clinical staff gained trusted partners who could manage non-clinical needs and provide supplemental communication. Patients reported feeling informed and supported throughout their visit.

Leaders also identified safety benefits, including opportunities to recognize patients in waiting areas who required additional clinical attention before their condition worsened.

“We really wanted to collaborate with the team down there to make sure that they knew you can use us as a resource,” said Alloway. “That way we can help make not only the staff experience better, but also the patient experience.”

Cooper’s leaders view emergency department experience improvement as an ongoing discipline, not a completed project.

The organization continues to meet regularly with clinical and operational stakeholders, review patient feedback, and refine programs based on evolving needs. Leaders are also exploring opportunities to expand elements of the Experience Excellence Program into additional service areas, including surgical access.

For Cooper, the work remains focused on one core principle: helping every patient feel seen, heard, informed, and supported, even in the busiest care environments.