Teaneck, N.J.-based Holy Name Medical Center is marking its 100th year in 2025 with a $75 million gift that will help shape the hospital’s next century.
“[Holy Name] has a long tradition of putting the needs of the community ahead of the balance sheet of the organization,” President and CEO Michael Maron told Becker’s. “It’s always a very tenuous dance that has to happen because keeping ourselves financially viable is essential. But doing things in a different way and making sure that we’re meeting the needs of the community are also essential.”
The $75 million gift from the Douglas M. Noble Family Foundation is the largest received by a Catholic hospital in the U.S. and the second-largest made to a hospital in New Jersey, according to a July 28 news release from Holy Name.
Douglas Noble, MD, was an accomplished neuroradiologist who died in 2019. Holy Name had received other gifts from the foundation — one totaling $500,000 and another totaling $1 million. With the $75 million donation, Dr. Noble’s mother, Joan Noble, is gifting the entirety of the foundation’s funds to Holy Name. Though Dr. Noble did not have a direct connection to Holy Name, Ms. Noble knew Mr. Maron’s mother from church. Mr. Maron’s mother would tap Ms. Noble on the shoulder and let her know she was praying for her son as he was battling cancer.
“Joan and I believe that this was just the hand of God,” Mr. Maron said. “It was divine providence that made this. All the paths crossed together at this time and she became so comfortable that she just said, ‘Look, I’m 92 years old, I’m not in a position to deal with all these requests and be able to decipher what’s going on. I just want to hand everything over to you because I believe now I’ve prayed on it, I’ve thought about it, and I think it’s the right thing to do, and I think Doug would be happy knowing that this is what we’re doing. And so I just want to turn the foundation over to you and Holy Name and allow you to just use those resources for your next 100 years of growth and development.'”
Mr. Maron said the gift will help Holy Name address the ongoing provider shortage, expand specialized care and bring state-of-the-art technology to clinical services.
Holy Name recently launched an ACGME-approved teaching program, and it will transition from a traditional community hospital to an academic medical center.
“We’re in the first year,” he said. “We received ACGME approval for internal medicine, general surgery and family medicine. So those three residencies have started. We also have a pending application for OB-GYN that we should be hearing on in September. After these programs mature, we’ll look at all the medical, surgical sub-specialties and potential fellowship programs to fill out the complement of teaching that happens here.”
Mr. Maron said Holy Name also has a long-standing nursing school that will be “integral to the whole educational experience.”
“We’re looking to enhance and grow nurses, who are also in short supply,” he said, adding that the system is looking to develop physicians and nurses who subscribe to “Holy Name culture and humanism and medicine and a whole different approach than just the science.”
Mr. Maron said one of the standout aspects of Holy Name is that for the past 40 years, it has written and designed its own software. The gift will help on this front as well.
“We’re not on Epic; we’re our own software development shop, and that allows us to be much more agile, much more responsive to those community needs,” he said.
The gift will also give the hospital the opportunity to get deep into some of the specialty service lines it has not been able to offer in the past.
“The potential impact is limitless: enhancing patient care, fueling medical innovation, attracting the best physician talent, and allowing us to continuously grow and adapt in line with our core values of compassion and healing,” he said.
