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Samaritan Healthcare & Hospice Doctor Named Physician of Year

Marianne Holler, MSW, DO, FACOI of Delanco has been named a winner in the Physician of the Year category in the 2013 NJBIZ Healthcare Heroes awards program.

 

The Healthcare Heroes award program, produced by business news publication NJBIZ, honors individuals and organizations making a significant impact on the quality of healthcare in New Jersey. Winners and finalists were selected in eleven categories.

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Holler, who joined Samaritan in 2011, serves as a hospice and palliative medicine physician for the organization which cares for more than 350 hospice patients and more than 170 palliative and transitional patients daily over a 2200-square-mile service area. Holler earned a DO from UMDNJ-SOM (now RU-SOM) and a Master’s in Social Work from Fordham University.

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Holler’s nomination cited her groundbreaking efforts this year, in collaboration with the Rowan University School of Osteopathic Medicine, to gain accreditation from the American Osteopathic Association for New Jersey’s first Hospice and Palliative Medicine Fellowship. This fellowship program, which began July 1, will provide training that in 2014 becomes mandatory for any physician seeking Board Certification in Hospice and Palliative Medicine. The program, only one of eight in the US affiliated with an osteopathic school of medicine, will help address a critical and growing shortage of palliative physicians to meet the needs of our aging society, according to The American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine.

 

Holler was also recognized for her work with Samaritan’s African Hospice partnership. Samaritan, through an initiative of the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization (NHPCO), adopted a “sister hospice” in Fall 2010. Holler was one of eight Samaritan staff and volunteers who embarked on a two-week humanitarian mission to Kawempe Home Care in Kampala, Uganda in March 2013 to share clinical and cultural exchanges with staff and patients coping with HIV-AIDS, Cancer and Tuberculosis.

 

On the airplane ride to Kampala, Holler and Samaritan RN Susan Rogoff became literal heroes as they worked together to revive a fallen passenger with a barely perceptible pulse, saving her life and averting the need to divert the packed jetliner to an emergency landing in Ireland.

 

Healthcare Heroes finalists and winners were chosen by an independent panel of judges including: Dean Paranicas, Healthcare Institute of New Jersey; Pat Barnett, RN, JD, New Jersey State Nurses Association, and The Institute for Nursing; Wardell Sanders, New Jersey Association of Health Plans; Sonia Delgado, Princeton Public Affairs Agency; and Claudine M. Leone, Esq., Government Affairs Consultant. The Healthcare Heroes honorees were highlighted in a special NJBIZ supplement in late June.

 

The award program was sponsored by Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey, Hackensack University Medical Center, Comcast Business, New Jersey Hospital Association and WithumSmith+Brown, PC.

 

 

For more information about the NJBIZ Healthcare Heroes awards program please visit www.njbiz.com/events.

 

About Samaritan Healthcare & Hospice:

Samaritan Healthcare & Hospice─ a not-for-profit, non-sectarian organization ─ is the regional leader for palliative medicine, hospice care, geriatric care management, grief support and counseling and end-of-life education and advocacy. This range of services is available throughout the course of an illness and beyond. Last year, Samaritan provided $26 million of care for people in Atlantic, Burlington, Camden, Gloucester and Mercer counties who were coping with elder care issues, serious illness, and/or grief.  Generous community support last year funded $1.25 million in essential, yet non-reimbursed, services over-and-above Samaritan services covered by Medicare, Medicaid, VA and commercial insurers.  For more information, visit www.SamaritanHealthcareNJ.org


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