The announced $3 billion “Project Imagine” expansion of its Camden campus in 2025 showed vision.
The plans for a 184,000-square-foot outpatient campus in Gloucester Township,
announced in June, showed understanding.
The $100 million donation from Chairman George Norcross last month was a stunning show of generosity.
But today’s announcement from U.S. News and World Report 2026-27 Best Hospital
Rankings — that Cooper University Health Care is the fourth-best hospital in the state
and eighth best in the greater Philadelphia area — shows the system’s long-running
commitment to quality care is being recognized on a grand scale.
It’s the first-ever top-five designation for Cooper, which jumped from No. 7 a year ago.
And it came with other accolades.
Cooper earned high-performing ratings — the highest designation U.S. News awards
outside a numerical specialty ranking — in 11 adult specialties, including heart bypass
surgery, heart failure, stroke, COPD and several cancer-related procedures.
The health system was also named a Best Regional Hospital for Community Access,
one of just 73 hospitals nationwide to receive the distinction and the only one in New
Jersey, according to U.S. News. Cooper also ranked eighth among hospitals in the
Philadelphia metro area.
Norcross said the accolades reflect a system-wide commitment.
“The increase in ranking in New Jersey this year is a powerful recognition of the
extraordinary work done by Cooper’s exceptional physicians, nurses, and team members,” he said. “It reflects our continued investment in the people, programs, and innovation that make Cooper one of the nation’s premier academic health systems.”
Co-CEOs Kevin O’Dowd and Anthony Mazzarelli agreed.
“This year’s ranking reflects the momentum we are building as an academic health system and the exceptional care our teams deliver every day,” O’Dowd said.
Mazzarellil, a doctor, was particularly impressed by the specialty rankings.
“Recognition across so many specialties is a testament to the skill, dedication, and teamwork of Cooper’s physicians, nurses, advanced practice providers, and team members,” he said. “Their commitment to clinical excellence is what enables us to deliver outstanding outcomes and bring high-quality academic medicine close to home.”
The ranking is the fourth major Cooper headline since the start of 2025.
In January 2025, the health system broke ground on Project Imagine, a $3 billion
expansion of its Camden campus that will add up to 745 all-private inpatient beds. In
June, Cooper unveiled plans for a $300 million, 184,000-square-foot outpatient campus
in Gloucester Township — its largest ambulatory facility to date, expected to open in
2029. And in July, Norcross announced a $100 million gift to the health system in honor
of his parents, the largest single philanthropic gift in Cooper’s history.
And when you add in other moments — such as finding partners in battle to combat
nursing shortage or being the only provider of stem cell transplant service in South
Jersey — a trend emerges.
Taken together, the run tells a consistent story: a health system that has spent the past
year and a half building bigger, spending bigger, and now, climbing higher in the
rankings that patients actually look at when choosing where to get care.
