Longtime ChristianaCare CEO retiring, successor named

After serving as president and CEO of ChristianaCare for 12 years, Dr. Janice E. Nevin has announced her plans to retire.

Nevin will step down Sept. 1. The Delaware health system has already named her successor.

ChristianaCare’s board of directors has named Jenn Schwartz, the system’s executive vice president and chief strategy officer, as the next president and CEO.

Nevin has spent more than two decades with the organization, joining ChristianaCare in 2002, initially serving as chair of the Department of Family and Community Medicine.

“It has been the honor of my professional life to serve as the president and CEO of ChristinaCare,” Nevin said in a video message posted on YouTube. “I am deeply grateful for your trust, your partnership, and the opportunity to care for you and the people you love. From the bottom of my heart, thank you.”

ChristianaCare is the dominant health system in Delaware and holds $5 billion in assets. The nonprofit system operates three hospitals and a host of other clinics and outpatient facilities in Delaware. But the system does face some competition from health systems in the Philadelphia market. The City of Brotherly Love is less than 40 miles from Wilmington.

S&P Global Ratings has given ChristianaCare a stable outlook and a “AA” bond rating, saying the system enjoys a “very strong financial profile, supported by a still-healthy pro forma balance sheet and solid financial performance.”

ChristianaCare has partnered with Emerus to build three micro hospitals in the Philadelphia suburbs. The small hospitals have full-service emergency departments and a handful of inpatient beds. One of the hospitals opened in Chester County, Pennsylvania last year, and the plans for the other two facilities are underway.

Last year, ChristianaCare won a $50 million auction to acquire five suburban Philadelphia outpatient facilities formerly owned by Crozer Health, which collapsed after the bankruptcy of its parent company, Prospect Medical Holdings, WHYY reported.

George Foutrakis, chairman of ChristianaCare’s board of directors, said Nevin’s leadership has helped transform the system.

“Dr. Nevin’s leadership has helped shape ChristianaCare into a mission-driven organization grounded in compassion, innovation and service,” Foutrakis said in a statement. “Under her guidance, we have dramatically expanded access to care — both in our physical footprint and through significant investment in historically under-resourced areas like primary care, school-based health centers, virtual care and behavioral health.”

Brian Frazee, president and CEO of the Delaware Healthcare Association, praised Nevin’s leadership, calling her a “respected changemaker and transformational leader.”

“Throughout her tenure at ChristianaCare, Dr. Nevin has remained a steady advocate for value-based, data-driven approaches that center on high-quality care, meeting people where they are and supporting them through any challenge, including an unprecedented pandemic,” Frazee said in a statement released Thursday.

In her video message announcing her plans to retire, Nevin also offered a strong endorsement of her successor.

“Over the years, Jenn has been a trusted thought partner and a key architect of our strategy, helping guide ChristinaCare through a period of tremendous growth and complexity,” Nevin said. “She knows the organization inside and out, and I have complete confidence in both her leadership and her ability to carry forward our mission with vision and purpose.”

Schwartz called it an “extraordinary privilege to be chosen to lead ChristianaCare and build upon the remarkable foundation Dr. Nevin has created.”

“This is an organization where purpose and performance are inseparable, and where caregivers bring our values to life in meaningful ways every day,” Schwartz said in a statement.