The Camden Coalition of Healthcare Providers, a group devoted to studying the city's health-care needs, is taking its mission national. Organizers are establishing a center devoted to finding solutions for treating the nation's high-cost patients, the coalition announced this week.

Jeffrey C. Brenner, director of Cooper University's Institute of Urban Health and the Camden physician who founded the coalition, said the center would be the first such organization in the country.

"I think this is part of Camden's recovery, for the city to be on the map for something so positive," he said.

The project is funded by $8.7 million from AARP, the Atlantic Philanthropies, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The goal, Brenner said, is to create a network of health-care professionals and others who are looking for ways to care for the country's most complicated patients, such as those who make frequent hospital visits and suffer from a variety of overlapping ailments. 

For more on CCHP's plans to expand its initiative, please visit: http://www.philly.com/philly/news/new_jersey/20160310_Camden_health_initiative_goes_national.html