Community Medical Center (New Jersey)

Opened in 1961 as Community Memorial Hospital, it was initially a small facility, with only 50 beds and 15 physicians. The center expanded in the 1980s, adding a five-level parking garage and a four-story section of patient rooms.

Community Medical Center was the largest non-teaching hospital in New Jersey^[3] until July 2021, when the first round of residents were invited to the facilities under the academic medical program partnership with Rutgers University.^[4]

In 2015, Barnabas Health (parent organization of Community Medical Center) merged with Robert Woods Johnson Health System, making the Medical Center now part of RWJBarnabas Health, the largest academic health system in New Jersey.^[5]

The hospital has approximately 2,800 associates, 650 on-staff physicians, and 1,700 volunteers attending to 28,000 in-patients, 127,700 out-patients, and 100,000 emergency department patients each year.

Community Medical Center received its third Accreditation in 2002 from the Joint Commission.

In 2013, the Grunin Foundation bestowed the hospital with a $3.5 million gift to establish a neuroscience institute at the hospital, equivalent to $4.72 million in 2024).^[6] The institute is an interdisciplinary group of specialists whose aim is to prevent, diagnose, and treat diseases of the brain, spinal cord, and the peripheral nervous system, including:

• Stroke
• Seizure disorders/epilepsy
• Dementia/Alzheimer's disease
• Movement disorders/Parkinson's disease
• Traumatic brain injuries (TBI)
• Neuromuscular disease
• Sleep disorders

The institute operates 24 hours a day and is open year-round.

The Epilepsy Center at CMC, part of the Grunin Neuroscience Institute, is recognized as a Level 3 adult and pediatric epilepsy center by the National Association of Epilepsy Centers. The center is one of 11 centers in New Jersey that meet the criteria to operate as a Level 3 or Level 4 center.^[7]

Due to serving a very high population of geriatric patients, at least 75 years old, CMC treats more patients with cardiac disease than any other hospital in the state without a cardiac surgery program.^[8] Provided services generally fall to one of two treatment centers:

• Non-Invasive Cardiac Lab (NICL), offering services such as stress testing, EKG, and cardioversion
• Invasive diagnostic services, such as pacemakers, transesophageal echocardiogram, cardiac catheterizations, and angioplasty (both elective and emergent)

The center's focus is cancer prevention, detection, and treatment. It has been nationally recognized by the Commission on Cancer of the American College of Surgeons with accreditation since 1986. Currently, the Rutgers Cancer Institute provides services at the hospital.^[9]

Therapies provided at the center include:

• Chemotherapy
• Biotherapy
• Radiation therapy and radioactive implants
• End-of-life care

• Chemotherapy
• Blood and blood products transfusions
• Antibiotic infusions