ChristianaCare and Virtua Health are exploring a merger
If the two nonprofits reach a final deal, it would create a $6 billion-plus system with more than 600 sites of care in four states.
ChristianaCare and Virtua Health are exploring a merger that would create a new regional health system with business in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland, the two nonprofits announced Wednesday.
The combined system would have more than $6 billion in annual revenue and nearly 30,000 employees. It would have more than 600 sites of care across 10 contiguous counties in the four states.
ChristianaCare is Delaware’s largest health system and has been working to expand advanced care, particularly in cancer. Virtua, which has strong ties to Penn Medicine, is the largest in South Jersey.
The letter of intent announced Wednesday is not a final agreement, but a step toward deeper analysis of how the two financially strong health systems would come together.
“This collaboration is about two vibrant organizations coming together and doing even more for a growing number of communities we serve,” George N. Foutrakis, chair of the ChristianaCare Health System board, said in a news release.
“Our vision for this new health system — when Medicare and Medicaid are facing cuts and many hospitals are struggling to stay open — gives me hope and excitement for our future and for the health of our neighbors,” he said.
Neither CEO, Janice E. Nevin at ChristianaCare or Dennis W. Pullin at Virtua, was available for an interview.
Pullin said in a video message to staff that during preliminary talks, Virtua found ChristianaCare to be a like-minded organization.
“We saw that neither one of our organizations is interested in getting bigger just to be bigger, and we connected over the notion that we both want to amplify our care and service impact in our communities,” Pullin said.
Both health systems nonetheless have been expanding.
Virtua acquired Lourdes Health System in New Jersey in 2019, and is now spending hundreds of millions to renovate two of its hospitals.
ChristianaCare explored an acquisition of Crozer Health in 2022, but decided not to go through with the deal. It won a May bankruptcy auction to assume Crozer leases at five outpatient locations in Delaware.
ChristianaCare previously acquired the shuttered Jennersville Hospital in Chester County and is turning it into a micro-hospital. It plans two more micro-hospitals for Delaware County.
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Virtua had $3.24 billion in revenue last year. ChristianaCare had $3.1 billion in revenue in the year that ended June 30, 2024.
Both systems have strong credit ratings. Standard & Poor’s has a “AA+” rating on ChristianaCare. The same agency rates Virtua at “AA-”.
A merger of ChristianaCare and Virtua would be the biggest in the region since Thomas Jefferson University acquired Lehigh Valley Health Network last August, creating a system with 32 hospitals, more than 700 sites of care, and 65,000 employees that sprawls from northeast Pennsylvania to South Jersey.
More recently, St. Luke’s University Health Network acquired Grand View Health in Bucks County, and Penn acquired Doylestown Health, the seventh hospital in its system, in April.
Cooper University Health Care took over Cape Regional Medical Center last July.