Penn Medicine Princeton Health, our newest member, ranks among the most comprehensive healthcare systems in New Jersey. Indeed, its top-rated hospital and affiliates – which include mental health and addiction services, in-home nursing and rehabilitation, hospice care, and a growing employed physician practice – are committed to providing clinical excellence. Now, in joining Penn Medicine, “we look forward to being an even stronger organization, clinically and financially, as we continue to fulfill our mission of serving this community,” said Barry S. Rabner, president and CEO of Penn Medicine Princeton Health. “We could not ask for a better partner.”
But today’s Princeton Health was almost a century in the making. Like Penn Medicine’s other hospitals, it comes from humble beginnings.
Where It All Started
Princeton Medical Center (PMC), known as University Medical Center of Princeton prior to January 1, opened in 1919 in response to a worldwide flu pandemic. Hundreds of Princeton area residents developed severe influenza at a time when the nearest hospitals in Trenton were already full, so Princeton residents and officials turned a Stockton Street inn into a temporary hospital and worked to establish a permanent one elsewhere.
Philanthropist Moses Tyler Pyne donated a farm at 253 Witherspoon Street, a site described by Charles LaTourette, editor of the Princeton Packet, as “ideally located at the foot of lower Witherspoon Street, where the cool health-giving breezes sweep down into the valley from the mountain. It seems like some iridescent dream that we can at last have a hospital of our very own.”
A public campaign raised funds to renovate the farmhouse. When the hospital opened its doors, it featured an operating room, 22 beds, and a medical staff of five doctors. PMC remained at this location for almost 93 years, but over the years the hospital bore no resemblance to the farmhouse where it all began, thanks to frequent upgrades and expansions from the 1920s through the 1990s.
Eventually, the hospital’s capabilities and technological needs outgrew the Witherspoon Street campus, and in 2005, the hospital’s Board of Trustees voted to build a new hospital in neighboring Plainsboro.
An Eye to Patient-Centered Care
A baby welfare station that helped establish a free clinic in 1929 at Princeton Hospital.
After years of careful planning and design, a $523 million, 636,000-square-foot hospital was constructed alongside Route 1 as the anchor of a 171-acre healthcare campus. Once again, philanthropy was crucial – a capital campaign raised $171 million to support the construction.
The design of the 231 single-patient rooms was based on the results of an innovative study conducted at the old hospital. Patients stayed and received care in a working model room and then offered feedback. Physicians, nurses and other staff were surveyed as well. The research resulted in more than 250 changes to the final room design – for example, placing the toilet off-center, which enabled staff to assist patients when needed, and installing sliding, frosted glass bathroom doors to give patients privacy but to allow staff members to see movement and shapes well enough to ensure that patients are not in distress. Results of the room design study were shared with hospitals nationally and internationally through the Pebble Project, a collaborative research initiative of the Center for Health Design. This national nonprofit engages clinical and design professionals to improve the quality of healthcare environments.
This attention to detail – and patient-centered care – did not go unnoticed. Since the hospital opened in 2012, inpatient satisfaction scores have consistently ranked above the 90th percentile among New Jersey hospitals, compared to the 61st percentile in 2011.
PMC also has enjoyed a growing reputation for clinical quality. U.S. News & World Report has recognized PMC as a “Best Regional Hospital” for three consecutive years, with the hospital ranking in the top 10 statewide and the top 20 in the entire New York metropolitan region in each of those years. Its nursing excellence led to a Magnet designation in 2012 and re-designation this past September. The Magnet surveyors cited the hospital’s Behavioral Emergency Response Team (BERT) workgroup – which increases nurses’ confidence and competence in caring for patients with behavioral health needs – as an “exemplary professional practice.”
The hospital also received recognition for Princeton Health’s comprehensive community education and outreach efforts, which includes 1,700 programs each year, such as free health screenings and educational sessions led by doctors, nurses and other health professionals. One of its most popular annual outreach events is the Kids Marathon, initiated in 2009, which encourages physical activity for all children and raises awareness of the health effects of childhood obesity. Each year, hundreds of participants – children in grades pre-K through 8 – run, walk, or roll 25 miles over 10 weeks and then come together on a weekend morning for a 1.2-mile fun run that completes the 26.2-mile distance.
A Regional Leader in Behavioral Health
In 1971, the Board of Trustees purchased Princeton House, a psychiatric hospital and alcohol treatment center that was originally developed as a nursing and convalescent center for theater professionals. Today, Princeton House Behavioral Health is a regional leader in behavioral healthcare, providing a full spectrum of mental health and addiction services for people of all ages.
The main campus, which admits 3,600 inpatients annually into its 110 beds, received recent state approval to develop 29 more beds. Over the past two decades, Princeton House also opened six outpatient centers – two in Princeton and one each in Moorestown, Hamilton, Eatontown, and North Brunswick – that handle 95,000 patient visits each year.
In 2013, Princeton House launched an inpatient program for first responders affected by post-traumatic stress disorder and substance abuse issues. The program has treated more than 700 individuals, including police officers, corrections officers, firefighters, EMTs, active military, and veterans. Princeton House professionals also are collaborating with infectious disease experts on a research project to study hepatitis C virus infection among young adults in treatment for opiate abuse.
The affiliation between Princeton House and Princeton Medical Center ensures a continuum of care that can be critical for patients’ recovery. Princeton House physicians and professionals supplement the hospital’s services, overseeing care provided in the Behavioral Health Emergency Department and the nationally recognized, 22-bed Center for Eating Disorders Care.
Home Care Connection with Penn Medicine
An X ray in the 1950s.
Princeton HomeCare, which provides a wide array of services, began serving the community in 1966, when the hospital initiated a program to coordinate a variety of services that enabled recovering or chronically ill patients to be cared for at home. The following year, Princeton’s Visiting Nurse Association – founded in 1901— joined forces with the hospital as well.
Princeton HomeCare has a history of working with Penn Medicine in New Jersey, providing pre- and post-surgical care for transplant patients and infusion therapy through a relationship with Penn Home Infusion that dates back more than 15 years. About half of Penn Medicine patients discharged to New Jersey are referred to Princeton HomeCare.
In 2017, the Hospice Program of Princeton HomeCare expanded “No One Dies Alone,” a program featuring specially trained volunteers who provide bedside companionship to dying patients when family members and other loved ones cannot be there. Also in 2017, the Hospice Program became a regional partner of We Honor Veterans, a campaign by the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization and the Department of Veteran Affairs to improve the quality of care provided to veterans.
Like Princeton House, Princeton HomeCare enhances services at Princeton Medical Center, notably by providing in-home rehabilitation to patients discharged from the Jim Craigie Center for Joint Replacement, a Joint Commission-certified unit. The Craigie Center is able to discharge 85 percent of its patients to home.