Maggie McKay (Host): The importance of partnerships between higher education and healthcare is so valuable, we thought we'd shed some light on what makes it so useful. That's why today we'll find out about the partnership between Bergen Community College and Bergen New Bridge Medical Center, with President and CEO Deborah Visconi and Dr. Eric Friedman, President of Bergen Community College.

Welcome to Wellness Waves, a podcast from Bergen New Bridge Medical Center. I'm your host, Maggie McKay. It's such a pleasure to meet you both and have you here today. Deborah and Eric, would you please introduce yourselves?

Deborah Visconi: Hi, Maggie. This is Deb Visconi, President and CEO of Bergen New Bridge Medical Center, and thank you for having us on this podcast today. It's a real privilege. Thank you.

Eric Friedman, PhD: Hi, Eric Friedman, President of Bergen Community College. It's really wonderful to be here with both of you. Thank you.

Host: Absolutely. I can't wait to hear more about your union. Bergen Community College and Bergen New Bridge Medical Center have a unique partnership. They're both heavily connected to Bergen County Government, which offers support, advocacy, and funding. That makes the two institutions kind of cousins in effect. Does this encourage you to develop programs and initiatives together?

Eric Friedman, PhD: Absolutely, I can take that. And Deb might have some things to add afterwards. Just absolutely, we're deeply engaged with county government. They fully support our initiatives, because we're aiming to improve lives for county residents, whether through healthcare or education or employment pipelines. We share the same goals and values between us and also with county government and really the bottom line is that our county government partners want us to be successful in our mission of moving residents up and forward and they invest in our success. We're also serving the same community members. Many of our students are New Bridge patients and New Bridge employees too after school here. So, great question. Thanks.

Host: Deborah, anything to add?

Deborah Visconi: Yeah, I mean, I think you said it best. You know, we are like cousins. We are a big family here in Bergen County with support from the county leadership, and support of each other in the unified mission of bettering the lives of the residents. And from an education and a healthcare perspective, identifying those individuals that can seek education at the college and then employment at the medical center. And it really has been and continues to be a very seamless, family-oriented tradition of working together.

Host: How do Bergen New Bridge and Bergen Community College interact with each other? How do you support each other?

Deborah Visconi: So, it's been a longstanding relationship between the college and the medical center at many different levels. We have an extraordinary relationship with the programs that the college offers, particularly the nursing program, which has been a longstanding relationship with the faculty there, not only in bringing nursing students through the medical center in both our behavioral health and our long-term care divisions, but our acute care divisions as well.

We actually bring on about 32 students a semester from the college over to Bergen New Bridge Medical Center. But it also goes the other way. Many of our faculty here are faculty at the college. And so, you have an interaction of professionals at both levels. Students coming here and then our educators going over to the college. So, it's been a very synergistic relationship utilizing our resources together.

Host: And you both had the experience of rising up through the ranks of your respective industries. Do you think the experience of rising up through your respective industries has uniquely prepared you for the top positions at your institutions?

Eric Friedman, PhD: That's a great question. My dad used to tell me that you can't run a print shop or a printing operation if you don't know how to run a press. Being in the classroom, as I was for many years, it taught me how to directly connect with students and showed me what students really needed in a community college environment to be successful at the college in their studies and beyond.

So, I got real insight as I moved along through a variety of positions into the daily challenges for community college students and our community members. You know, developing leadership means you've got to know what's happening in the type of organization you're leading. And leadership is really, really important. And I think it gets overlooked and a little bit of short shrift in certain circles. With the right leadership team in place, and I'm sure Deborah will agree with me on this, when you've got people that are really living and breathing the mission and really believe in it, an organization or a county or an entire country can accomplish tremendous things together.

Deborah Visconi: I would just echo what Eric said and add to it that I do believe rising through the ranks of healthcare, you know, having started my career as a phlebotomist and becoming a lab professional, eventually in administration, really has given me unique perspective into the business and the frontline priorities and that leadership and empathy that comes with having risen through the ranks, and I think that really is valuable not just as a leader, but also in terms of credibility on the front lines, to the staff and to the communities that we serve. I think it really is a powerful path for people in leadership positions in our respective organizations.

Host: That's so true, especially, Dr. Friedman, what your father said, like, you know, unless you've done it, how are you going to know how to lead other people? There are a significant number of Bergen Community College graduates who now work at Bergen New Bridge, not just in the healthcare side, but in security, finance, and more. That's so cool. Talk about that pipeline of talent and the symbiotic nature of it.

Deborah Visconi: Well, when we started, we embarked on looking at how really vibrant this relationship has been and to see so many of our leaders and frontline staff that have gone through Bergen Community College as, you know, their education and then working here, it really is a very, very very validating the work that we do. So yes, we have a supervisor in security. Our OR nurse director came from Bergen Community College. It's great relationship. I mean, we are creating, developing, nurturing, and supporting our future pipeline.

Host: Dr. Friedman, anything to add?

Eric Friedman, PhD: Yeah. You know, the best counties have these organizations and institutions that are working really well together. So, right now, in Bergen County I know there's a challenge with teacher aides and teachers. So, we have early childhood education programs, we're partnering with another institution to have a teacher aide to teaching program that we're developing.

But as you mentioned, it's not just the health care professionals who take their clinical hours and spend time at Bergen New Bridge. We have so many business students and I know recently an accounting student was hired by New Bridge and public safety officers. There's so many symbiotic points of contact where county partners working together can really serve each other's needs so wonderfully.

Host: Do you see a lot of similarities between the medical center and the college, like population served, their mission, et cetera?

Deborah Visconi: I would say I do. I mean, I think the communities that we serve, the students, the employees, there's a lot of similarities between both populations. And again, back to the family concept, you know, we're all part of Bergen County. And that way to integrate both sides there's really definitely a lot of similarities and really things that relate to each other in terms of populations and mission, you know, what we're about, why we're here serving the needs of our communities.

Eric Friedman, PhD: We're committed at the college to serving all of the residents of the county from the north to the south to the east to the west. It's our core mission, and we are an open access institution. Very diverse student body. It's To no surprise to me, there's significant amount of crossover between those who go to New Bridge, seeking services, and many of those patients are our students, as I said before. So, lots of point of crossover.

Host: And Bergen New Bridge is the largest hospital in the state, and Bergen Community College has the most students and associate degree graduates in the state. So what challenges and opportunities come from being the biggest?

Deborah Visconi: I see a lot of opportunities. I think there's a lot of richness that we both offer and a lot of opportunities and a lot of just ways that people can further their, you know, careers, their education with what we offer because we have such broad programs and multidisciplinary approach to things. We are a standalone facility so we have the flexibility to be able to create unique opportunities for individuals that, you know, really tailor to what they're looking to do.

Eric Friedman, PhD: As an open access institution, we have about 13,000 students at any point in time, plus thousands of continuing ed and workforce development students. So, bigness is definitely there. But we have an open access philosophy, which is really important. That's the bedrock, and it's the commitment of everyone across the college to focus on the success of each individual student. And that's the equity approach. And since I came to the college, I've really been stressing that. Understand who each student is. Understand their needs. It's a little different than equality and just saying you all have an opportunity to do well here. It's really taking the time to understand individuals and individual students.

Host: That's so awesome. What can we expect in the future regarding this relationship? Dr. Friedman?

Eric Friedman, PhD: Well, Deborah and I attend a lot of associations together and a lot of events together. We're on a couple of boards together, advisory boards. So, we're tuned in to what's happening around the county. You'll see both of us at the table with organizations that are moving the county forward and the state forward. We will continue to collaborate. We'll continue to develop programs in lockstep with each other. And I'm enormously grateful for this unique partnership. It is absolutely a best practice for the connection of a county health services organization with a community college.

Deborah Visconi: Yeah, Eric said it perfectly well. This partnership really is unique and it's special and it continues to build. And as we move into the future, you know, these types of relationships are going to continue to be just so important to the future workforce of our communities, of our state, the fact that we can collaborate. Our missions are aligned, our access philosophies are aligned. And even though we're big in size and breadth and scope, we really still have that personal touch. And as Eric mentioned, he and I are everywhere together. And just us being out there as the face of our respective organizations and representing the county really is meaningful to the communities that we serve, and it really is putting actions to words.

Host: Such an informative conversation. Thank you both so much for your time and it really sounds like a win-win for all the people you serve and for the people who work there. So, thank you for your time.

Deborah Visconi: Thank you for having us.

Eric Friedman, PhD: Thank you.

Host: Again, that's Deborah Visconi and Dr. Eric Friedman. And if you'd like to find out more, please visit newbridgehealth.org. That's www.newbridgehealth.org. And if you found this podcast helpful, please share it on your social channels and check out our full podcast library for topics of interest to you. I'm Maggie McKay. This is Wellness Waves from Bergen New Bridge Medical Center. Thanks for listening.