How Bergen New Bridge Medical Center Is 'Innovating Around the Human Spirit'

CEO Deborah Visconi outlines a behavioral health-centered ED redesign and strategies aimed at strengthening the safety net as financial and policy pressures intensify.

As behavioral health needs surge nationwide and financial pressures mount for publicly owned hospitals, Bergen New Bridge Medical Center president and CEO Deborah Visconi says the moment demands a new model that pairs expansion in behavioral health with a disciplined safety-net strategy for long-term stability.

Visconi, who has led the 1,070-bed New Jersey-based safety-net since 2017, said the organization’s first phase under her tenure focused on strengthening the foundation, with an emphasis on stability, access, and quality. But the environment has shifted, and with federal policies and Medicaid eligibility changes reshaping the economics of care, Visconi believes the hospital is entering a fundamentally different chapter.

"What we're seeing as the next phase is really about scale and sustainability," she told HealthLeaders.

At the center of that next phase is a behavioral health investment that includes a completely redesigned emergency department built around dignity, capacity, and stigma-free care.

"Behavioral health and addictions are at the core of who we are," Visconi said. "And they're not just service lines, but they are truly part of our identity and what the community needs and expects from us."

The redesign, set to be unveiled in the coming months, marks a significant expansion in which Bergen New Bridge’s bed capacity will increase by over 50% and the emergency room will extend from 19 bays to 49, with 30 going to behavioral health, according to Visconi.

However, the size of the project matters less to Visconi than how the space feels to patients in crisis.

She described the new unit as "a beautifully designed space that eliminates the stigma around those suffering from behavioral health and addictions." Rooms, she explained, are "amply sized with televisions and safe casings and furniture so the family can actually sit in the room with the patient."

The care model is rooted in the national EmPATH framework, an approach designed to bring humanity and emotional safety into emergency psychiatric care.

The ED is now also a certified autism center, another step meant to create an environment "truly innovating around the human spirit."

Visconi said: "That's really what is important to us for our communities, what they need, what they deserve, and what we can offer to them."

Pictured: Deborah Visconi, president and CEO, Bergen New Bridge Medical Center.

Balancing Mission and Margin as a Safety Net

Even as Bergen New Bridge leans further into behavioral health, Visconi acknowledged that the organization must support and fund that mission through a stronger financial footing.

"We don't have the luxury of choosing between mission and margin," she said. "We do live on that very thin line that can topple over to the negative side."

The path forward depends on expanding and diversifying the hospitals’ reach. Bergen New Bridge’s top priorities, according to Visconi, are growing the medical enterprise, developing new service lines, and expanding its ambulatory footprint.

It’s also vital that the hospital diversifies its payer mix so that it doesn’t have to rely on government funding streams, Visconi stated.

Simultaneously, Bergen New Bridge is leaning into value-based care arrangements that align financing with community needs. The strategy, Visconi said, includes "managing risk through value-based partnerships and at the same time never losing sight of why we exist."

These moves, she explained, are not for the sake of revenue, but about ensuring the hospital can keep delivering on its safety-net role. At the operational level, the organization evaluates every initiative through a simple test of whether it’s "grounded in access, equity, and long-term community impact," Visconi said.

That includes the implementation of Epic, a project she describes as essential to the sustainability of a modern safety net despite its big price tag. Epic will support "a truly integrated system of care that will connect every care setting so that patients have one place to look for all of their care needs, a seamless experience for patients and the providers." She added that Bergen New Bridge will leverage Epic’s AI components "to identify those gaps and coordinate those social supports interventions earlier."

Even with these strategies, Visconi is blunt about the need for stronger policy support to keep safety-net hospitals viable.

She pointed to three areas where she believes action is most urgent: "Advocating for sustainable Medicaid reimbursement, top of the list, expanding behavioral health funding, and investments in workforce pipelines and loan forgiveness programs."

If policymakers fail to act, she warned, the consequences extend far beyond any one hospital.

"If safety nets and hospitals like us remain underfunded, the entire system of care becomes vulnerable," Visconi said. "Strong safety nets make strong communities."