(upbeat music) - We're now joined by Deborah Visconi, who's President and Chief Executive Officer of Bergen New Bridge Medical Center.

Deb, good to have you with us.

- Great to be here.

Thank you for having me.

- You got it.

We're gonna put up the website of New Bridge.

Tell everyone what it is and the work that you do, you and your colleagues do every day.

- So, Bergen New Bridge Medical Center, the largest hospital in the state of New Jersey.

We are publicly owned and privately managed.

We are a safety net facility serving the residents and communities of northern New Jersey.

We are 1,070 beds under a one million-square-foot roof sitting on 62 acres of Bergen County property in Paramus, New Jersey.

We have several distinctive service lines that set us apart from many of the hospitals and health systems in the area.

Most notably, we have a very large and prominent behavioral health and mental health service line.

We have a very large and growing and thriving substance use disorder service line.

We have a long-term care division, so we are able to take care of the aging community in our county.

And we have a very large and robust community health network as well as an ambulatory care enterprise that reaches throughout the county of Bergen and beyond.

- Yeah, let me ask you this.

And I also wanna note that Deb Visconi was identified as number two on the 2004 NJBIZ Health Care Power list, so congratulations on that, Deb.

- Thank you very much.

Thank you.

It's really a testament to the work of the team here at Bergen New Bridge, so thank you for that.

- Absolutely.

I often say in our leadership programming that all the credit, when someone at the top of an organization, when that credit gets pushed down, the blame and responsibility, Deb, always goes up.

I just wonder, is that true?

- Well, the credit, but it's really- - But the blame part we have to take as leaders.

- The blame, yes, the blame.

The credit goes to the team.

- Always, always.

Now, let me ask you this, I'm curious about your journey to this position to be the CEO of this very significant healthcare organization in these incredibly challenging times in the hospital and healthcare profession.

Your journey, describe it, how you got to this position.

- Well, I started my career in healthcare as a phlebotomist.

So, I was born and raised.

- Is that blood?

- Yes, that's the people who draw blood, the early morning people that come to your room in the hospital with a flashlight- - That's you.

(laughs) - That was me.

But I was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York.

I come from an underserved family, and one of the things that I saw firsthand growing up was the lack of access to quality healthcare in my community and in particular for our family.

And so I always had it in me to try to change the world to make sure that everyone had equitable access to quality healthcare.

That no one should suffer, be ill or die from not being able to get equitable access to care.

And so that's always was part of who I was growing up.

And so living in Brooklyn, growing up in that area of Brooklyn, New York, and then moving to Queens, eventually wanted to get into healthcare.

My mother wanted me to be a nurse.

I chose a different path.

I chose medical laboratory science, so I am a lab tech by clinical background.

I started as a phlebotomist.

Grew into the lab tech world.

Got on the bench.

Worked in a number of New York City hospitals as a bench tech in microbiology.

Knew that I wanted to continue to progress my career so that I can get to a point where I can make the most difference to the communities that I serve, and went ahead and got my master's degree in Health Administration and was armed in 1992 to take over the world with my new degree, and just grew my career through administrative ranks of serving hospitals in the New York region, primarily.

Eventually moving into the New Jersey market, focusing on service lines and growth and community access to populations around the hospitals that I worked in.

And eventually, I live in Bergen County, New Jersey.

I've been here for 29 years.

Raised my family here.

Eventually this opportunity presented itself to be the leader, the President and CEO of the county owned hospital.

And, you know, I looked at it, and it was presented as a transformational opportunity to take- - What does that mean?

What does that mean, a transformational opportunity?

- So, it had a bit of a sordid reputation.

It wasn't very well-regarded.

- There were real challenges.

- There was quite a few challenges here, yes.

And so the transformation was about making this into a destination hospital in the state of New Jersey and transforming this county asset into the asset that it deserved to be and that the communities deserved.

And so it went from, it used to be run by for-profit.

Now we went from for-profit to not-for-profit and went into creating an asset for everyone in our county and in the northern region of the state for anyone who needs access to care, anyone who needs access to quality care.

We are partners with a clinical affiliate of Rutgers New Jersey Medical School.

We work very closely with some community partners, Care Plus New Jersey and Integrity House, in delivering on that mission to be a destination hospital in the state of New Jersey.

- Deb, let me ask you.

It's so interesting your journey, and also the history of New Bridge before it was named New Bridge and before this transformational opportunity slash challenge came up.

But I'm curious about this.

Because you've been in the healthcare and the hospital world for a couple years, what would you say the most significant long-term impact of COVID was and is on the world of healthcare and hospitals?

- I would say undeniably it's the recognition that health disparities and unequal access to care was something that had always existed, but it was exacerbated by the pandemic.

And I believe that all of us as health leaders have had this responsibility to recognize that, embrace it, acknowledge it, and respond to it, and I think that has been transformative for the industry.

- Before I let you go, during COVID, the worst times, you remember people were celebrating our heroes in healthcare, nurses, physicians, other folks in the hospital community who were just putting their lives on the line every day, extraordinary heroes.

How did we lose that?

- You know, I think that we will always recognize the people who deliver healthcare to their communities.

We will always- - They're still heroes, whether people acknowledge- - They are still- - They're still heroes.

I'm sorry Deb, go ahead.

- They are still heroes, and we may not be standing outside banging on pots and pans and cheering them on, but the communities that we serve and the communities that need us recognize the heroic impact that the professionals have.

- You know, again, for those who act like when that happened in March of 2020 and those many months and years after, that somehow those healthcare heroes are not heroes, you're sadly mistaken.

And when we go into a hospital, you know what those folks do for us and our family members, and so they'll always be heroes.

And to Deb Visconi and your team at New Bridge, I wanna say thank you for your work.

Deb Visconi is President and CEO of Bergen New Bridge Medical Center.

Deb, thank you so much for joining us.

We appreciate it.

- Thank you, Steve.

- You got it.

Stay with us, we'll be right back.

- [Narrator] One-On-One with Steve Adubato is a production of the Caucus Educational Corporation.

Celebrating 30 years in public broadcasting.

Funding has been provided by The New Jersey Education Association.

New Jersey Sharing Network.

Delta Dental of New Jersey.

PSEG Foundation.

The Healthcare Foundation of New Jersey.

The Russell Berrie Foundation.

The Adler Aphasia Center.

Community FoodBank of New Jersey.

And by The Fidelco Group.

Promotional support provided by NJ.Com.

And by CIANJ, and Commerce Magazine.

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