Alan Lieber

Alan Lieber, the Chief Operating Officer of Atlantic Health System’s Overlook Hospital in Summit, was selected as one of our People of the Year because he is keenly aware of a hospital’s commitment to community needs. In Lieber’s case, however, this awareness is not just limited to Summit, but extends throughout Union County, as well.

In the spring of 2007, it looked like Union Hospital was going to have to close its doors. “We became aware of the situation last April or May and realized that the closure was going to leave a tremendous gap in services for the people of Union,” said Lieber. “And in July, we were approached about taking it over by community leaders. We made a quick decision. We looked at it (Union) as a community we were already helping to serve … we were going to keep the Emergency Room at Union Hospital open … it was in both of our interests. There was community need and we were the best ones to fill that need.”

Lieber points out that an increasing volume of patients from the Union area had been seeking care from Overlook since November of 2007. Some of Union Hospital’s doctors were looking to come over to Summit and ambulances were, increasingly, being diverted from Union Hospital to Overlook while carrying patients from Irvington, Hillside, Roselle Park, Linden, Kenilworth and Cranford. Union Hospital was on overload.
Positive, dramatic change had already taken place at Union Hospital by the start of October of the past year. Where there had been six physicians on call for the Emergency Room, there were now 33. And Union’s E.R. staff, through computer hook-up with Overlook, now had immediate access to a broad range of Overlook specialists who could view, via web cams, what was going on with Union’s patients. Overlook was instantly getting the results of CAT scans of the brain sent from Union to Summit.

While Atlantic Health/Overlook Hospital runs the E.R. in its leased space, the rest of the building will be converted to medical offices and for use as a long-term health care facility.

“The main thing,” says Lieber, “is that we provided continuity and the E.R. never closed. At the stroke of midnight, when we took over, the staffs from Atlantic Health and that from St. Barnabas worked hand-in-glove for the benefit of the community.” It was bi-partisan business and what happened is being touted as a model for such situations that may exist throughout the state.

Alan Lieber, who grew up in Old Bridge and who now lives in Ramsey, has an outstanding background in hospital administration. A Cornell University graduate, he has been running Overlook Hospital since 2003. Prior to his leadership here, he was the VP of Operations for New York City’s Lenox Hill Hospital and the VP of Surgical, Neurocare and Cancer Services for the University of Maryland’s Medical System in
Baltimore. He has also served as the VP of the Medicine Patient Care Center of Philadelphia’s esteemed Hahnemann University Hospital.

While Lieber is being honored for his rescue work regarding Union Hospital, he should also be credited with helping lead his home hospital to unprecedented achievement. Overlook became the first comprehensive Stroke Center, with an aligned network of 14 primary such centers, in the state. “We’re educating the public about the need to get to the hospital right away … certainly within the first three hours … after experiencing signs of a stroke,” he said. “We have New Jersey’s first ‘Code Grey’ procedures in place and our reaction time (concerning stroke victims) is below the national reaction time limits. We have a lot to be proud of.”

Under Lieber’s stewardship at Overlook, the hospital has seen infection rates reduced by 40% and he’s headed a $110 million reinvestment program geared toward renovating the Overlook Emergency Department, the operating rooms and the Neuroscience and Cancer center. Overall, Lieber directs the operation of a 490-bed teaching hospital and manages all aspects of the $275 million institution. He is responsible for strategic planning, profit and loss, business development, and fundraising.

Those of us in Union, Summit and in all of the many communities in surrounding areas are lucky – and proud – to have Alan Lieber directing the medical services that are at the crux of our most crucial needs.