A coalition of six area health care systems rallied together for months in an effort to save Crozer Health, but two major roadblocks kept it from happening, writes John George for the Philadelphia Business Journal.
What the coalition needed, and couldn’t find, was “backstop” funding to protect the contributing health care systems from taking on Crozer’s financial losses.
Another concern was the hundreds of millions of investment dollars needed to rescue the Delaware County health system.
The coalition efforts were led by the University of Pennsylvania Health System and its CEO, Kevin Mahoney.
They were joined by Main Line Health, Jefferson Health, Temple Health, ChristianaCare, and Trinity Health Mid-Atlantic.
“We were all side-by-side, willing to talk,” said the now-retired Main Line Health CEO John J. “Jack” Lynch. “All of us wanted to figure out a way to make it work.”
A complex mix of owner debt, real estate structure, lack of capital reinvestment, and ongoing bankruptcy proceedings made any planning to stabilize Crozer Health by outside groups “very difficult,” Mahoney said.
The lesson learned, Mahoney said, is to intervene early to prevent hospital closures, before a “facility reaches a crisis point.”
Read more details on the obstacles facing the nonprofit takeover of Crozer Health in the Philadelphia Business Journal.
