Edison, N.J.-based Hackensack Meridian Health is not struggling for patients. The 18-hospital system serves more than 6 million New Jerseyans each year, post-pandemic utilization has pushed volumes to historic highs and the brand is strong enough that demand routinely outpaces what the system can absorb.
The challenge is access.
“A patient who can’t really get an appointment for six weeks isn’t going to wait for us because we wouldn’t wait either,” said Mark Sparta, president and COO of Hackensack Meridian Health, during an interview with the “Becker’s Healthcare Podcast.” “They go somewhere else.”
The state’s growing and aging population ensures demand will continue to build, and the patients who cannot get through quickly often go elsewhere permanently. That’s why the health system is leaning into the ambulatory space and developing new touchpoints for patients as their expectations evolve.
“It’s something we’ve agreed on calling ‘radical accessibility’,” said Mr. Sparta. “I’ll define that as removing every unnecessary step between a person recognizing and deciding that they need care, and when they actually receive that care. That really plays out in two ways: first, it’s geographic. We’re building density where people already are, such as the transit hub at Metropark, retail corridors and employer sites. Metropark happens to be the flagship for that model, but it’s certainly replicable in many other areas and we’re evaluating a number of different sites in other communities.”
The system opened the $200 million health and wellness center at Metropark Train Station earlier this year. The goal was care within 15 minutes of where patients live — eliminating what Mr. Sparta describes as the half-day experience of traveling to an appointment, waiting and traveling home.
The second axis is modality: what happens inside a clinical encounter does not always require a physical exam room. Hackensack Meridian is expanding virtual and asynchronous access, scaling remote monitoring for chronic disease and deploying hospital-at-home for lower-acuity patients who do not need the full scope of services a hospital provides.
“What traditionally happens in an exam room doesn’t always require one,” Mr. Sparta said. “That’s not a convenience play. It’s certainly a capacity play for us to be able to create more access, more capacity.”
The two axes complement one another because geographic density creates physical touchpoints closer to home while modality flexibility extends what the system can deliver without adding square footage. Together they are designed to expand net appointment capacity, which is central to how Hackensack Meridian evaluates its access strategy. As health systems broadly have been rebooting ambulatory investments, outpatient revenue has grown at a faster rate than inpatient.
“We need to be able to accept patients more quickly and more seamlessly. We need to be able to care for them more quickly and more seamlessly, and we have to be able to provide them with a much better experience because what we, unfortunately, often don’t recognize is the fact that people come to us when they have to, not because they want to,” Mr. Sparta said.
At the Becker's 11th Annual IT + Revenue Cycle Conference: The Future of AI & Digital Health, taking place September 14–17 in Chicago, healthcare executives and digital leaders from across the country will come together to explore how AI, interoperability, cybersecurity, and revenue cycle innovation are transforming care delivery, strengthening financial performance, and driving the next era of digital health. Apply for complimentary registration now.
