The new CEO of Crozer Health says it’s time to secure the system.
“What we need to do right now is really stabilize the operations,” Anthony “Tony” Esposito said in an interview with the Delaware County Daily Times. “Right now, we’ll continue to work through the potential acquisition from ChristianaCare.”
In February, Crozer Health, through its parent Prospect Medical Holdings, Inc., signed a letter of intent with non-profit ChristianaCare Health System Inc. to acquire the Delaware County health care system. The transaction is expected to be completed by the end of the year.
Esposito was appointed to the CEO position earlier this month.
“I think what we’re really trying to do now is stabilize and get the staffing that we need so that we can reopen some of these services that have been suspended,” Esposito said.
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Anthony “Tony” Esposito was named CEO of Crozer Health earlier this month.Since the beginning of the year, Crozer Health has gone through a plethora of cuts to services and closures of units and services throughout its entire system.
Esposito said positions are needed across the board, including registered nurses, and that a recruitment and retention task force has been convened with physicians, human resources personnel and employees to see what can be done differently to attract and retain workers.
Esposito explained some of the pressures on the Crozer Health system – some of which are being seen in the health care industry nationally.
In conjunction with health care’s constant changes, Esposito added, “With our expenses being so high because of inflation and then with reimbursement being so low, payers don’t change the reimbursement just because the inflation went up.
“So, it’s been a lot of turmoil in the health care industry,” the executive continued. “We’re still living in COVID, which we thought we’d be out of COVID by now.”
That said, he spoke of a vision of the future.
“A lot of the services are shifting to the outpatient side of the house so we really need to take a look at and really solidify where do we provide those services and where do we provide the access for our community,” Esposito said. “What I would like to do from now to whenever we do the transition with ChristianaCare … figure out our service lines, get back to the basics and really understand where we need access points for our patients.”
An approach that Crozer Health is taking is by including physician expertise in decision-making processes.
Esposito explained that the new leadership is involving the new Chief Medical Officer Dr. Dina Capalongo, D.O. and Dr. C. Nathan Okechukwu, President of Clinical Operations.
“We need input on the clinical side,” he said. “I would say over the last six months, it had been lacking.”
Even with the challenge of increased prices and payer limitations, the CEO said the system will continue to serve the community.
“That’s our vision,” Esposito said. “We’re taking care of some of the poorest in the community. Our model … is really providing the services we need to those individuals.”
Noting expansions in Brinton Lake, Broomall and Haverford, he added, “There’s some of the areas where we can take care of that side of the community and some of the better payers but it also helps us fund our mission to take care of the other population. You’ve got to balance both sides.”
Regarding the community’s concerns about Crozer Health’s intention to close Delaware County Memorial Hospital in Upper Darby, Esposito said, “There’s no plans at all right now to close Delaware County. We suspended services just because of staffing reasons.”
He said that under the public health emergency, Crozer Health was permitted to suspend services if it wasn’t safe and Crozer, like Delaware County, the Philadelphia area and across the country, is experiencing a staffing shortage.
“To provide safe care to our patients, we needed to consolidate services,” Esposito said. “And we’ll need to figure that out just like everybody else once the public emergency is lifted but the main reason we’ve done a lot of these suspension of services was really related to staffing shortages and really providing safe care to our patients and to the community.”
Esposito understands the bridge that needs to be the gap between Crozer Health and the public trust, particularly as elected leaders have criticized the system’s parent owner, with Delaware County Council saying they’re extorting the county.
“I can’t speak for Prospect ownership,” Esposito said, “but what I can let you know is what Prospect has done during COVID, with getting supplies in here.”
He said the company sent planes to Asia to obtain much-needed supplies, particularly when they were sparse, during the last years of the pandemic.
“Everything that we needed at the local level to treat our patients during this 100-year pandemic, Prospect was there for us,” Esposito said. “All I know is they were able to provide everything that we needed at the local level and I lived through COVID here.”
Previous to becoming CEO, Esposito, 53, of Chester County, was president of the Crozer Health Medical Group, which is the network of Crozer Health providers and physicians throughout Delaware County, for the past three years. Before that, he served as Chief Financial Officer at Drexel University College of Medicine, Roxborough Memorial and Brandywine Hospitals.
“I saw what our corporate owners were doing for us,” he said of Prospect Medical. “I can unequivocally say we wouldn’t have gotten through this without them. Between them and Gary Zimmer, our CMO, were probably why we made it through as best we did.”
He’s aware of the role the system plays as the largest employer in Delaware County with more than 4,500 employees.
“A lot of our employees live in the county,” Esposito said. “Yes, there might be a pending acquisition with ChristianaCare but we’re here for the community and we’re here to provide care for the community. Whether you’re in the northern part of the county or the southern part of the county, we have access points and we’re here and we provide good patient care.”
He said the Crozer Health employees are passionate and they work for the mission of serving the community.
“We have good providers and staff that are really caring for this community and they take it personally,” Esposito said.
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