AtlantiCare is looking to cure the area’s ills beyond conventional medicine.
President and CEO Michael Charlton laid out the company’s future plans Wednesday at Atlantic City's James Whelan Boardwalk Hall in a presentation that was part talk show, part community celebration with a bit of TED talk thrown in for good measure.
Vision 2030 sets lofty goals for the next six years, including helping feed and house residents, and even educate and employ local talent.
AtlantiCare YOUniversity gives students hand-on experience outside the classroom and will pay for their education and compensate their work while learning.
“We’re not just in the business of delivering health care, we’re in the people business,” Charlton said.
AtlantiCare President and CEO Michael Charlton's presentation was part talk show with an air of TED talk.Atlantic County’s health status is 18th out of the state’s 21 counties, he pointed out, with above-average instances of HIV, smoking, premature death and obesity. There is a 4.7-year decrease in life expectancy.
“In Atlantic City, it’s even worse.”
AtlantiCare has plans to change that, with goals of reducing food insecurity by 6 percent and unsheltered homelessness by 20 percent, while increasing life expectancies by five years.
“What would you do with an additional five years with your loved ones?” he asked the crowd.
But it was the many partnerships with outside powerhouses that heralded the most news, including plans to build a medical school in Atlantic City under a partnership with Drexel University.
The exact location of the school has not yet been decided, Charlton later told BreakingAC, but it will be somewhere between Albany Avenue and Stockton University’s city campus.
Charles Cairns, dean of Drexel University’s College of Medicine, sat down with Stockton University President Joe Bertolino and Sen. Vincent Polistina to talk about how things came to pass.
The senator’s call to a friend ended up with a chance connection to John Fry, president of Drexel University.
Bertolino, who has been at Stockton about nine months, said the school has a kinship with AtlantiCare as they share the same spaces, with neighboring campuses both in the city and in Galloway Township.
“We have a moral responsibility to be in and of the community,” Bertolino said. “This partnership provides that opportunity.”
“Our goal is to become a destination of care,” Charlton said.
Other partnerships include the Cleveland Clinic’s Cancer Center, Oracle Global Industries and the Global Neurosciences Institute, or GNI.
“This is just the best kept secret,” GNI’s Founder and President Dr. Erol Veznedaroglu told Charlton during their interview on stage. “We’re just beginning to see the level of quality care.”
When asked the message he would like to leave the audience with, “Dr. Vez” replied: “Wait and see what we’re going to do. It is truly going to be transformative.”
“What you’ve done as a team is absolutely remarkable,” said Oracle Global Industries Executive Vice President Mike Sicilia.
“We are just so impressed with AtlantiCare,” said Dr. Hetty Carraway, of the Cleveland Clinic.
AtlantiCare hopes to be for this community what Tower Health did for Reading, Pa., which was “totally uplifted,” Charlton said.
He also talked about the issues of mental illness and drugs that are intertwined in many of the issues the area faces.
“We will continue to find ways to support those in need as behavioral health and addiction services with dignity and compassion is not just needed, it is necessary."
A life-size timeline included the 1898 opening of Atlantic City Hospital on Ohio Avenue.Those attending the event also could walk through a life-size timeline of the hospital, with its beginnings as a 10-bed hospital at 26 S. Ohio Ave. in 1898.
Charlton’s beginnings also were in Atlantic City.
He grew up on Florida Avenue in Ducktown, attending St. Michael’s.
Charlton graduated Holy Spirit High School in 1986. His mother was part of the high’s schools first class to graduate after the school moved from Atlantic City to Absecon.
He knows that often the mantra has been to go out of state for top health care. His aim is to change that.
“You don’t need to go to Philly for excellence,” he said.
