PA's Chester County Hospital looks for bigger partner

No community hospital board easily votes to give up the hospital's independence and tie its fate to a larger health system. But that is what the boards in control of the 120-year-old Chester County Hospital did this month, after deciding that the $150 million to $275 million needed over the next decade to fulfill their vision for the institution was more than it could get on its own. What Michael J. Duncan, president and chief executive of the Chester County Hospital & Health System, and other Chester County Hospital leaders see in the future of the institution, one of the few remaining independent hospitals in the region, is more outpatient centers, an expanded physician network, and heavy investment in information technology to accommodate large-scale changes in health-care delivery.