ChristianaCare is looking to reopen the shuttered Jennersville Hospital in Penn Township early next year as a micro-hospital, writes Harold Brubaker for The Philadelphia Inquirer.

The model that Delaware’s largest health system is planning on using would be just one floor of the facility, which would allow it to expand on the business momentum ChristianaCare has been building for years with primary and specialty care clinics located in southern Chester and Delaware Counties.

“We didn’t want to recreate Jennersville Hospital, because it wasn’t working,” said Jennifer Schwartz, ChristianaCare’s chief strategy officer.

Before it closed in 2021, the hospital, which had 63 licensed beds, treated around 16 inpatients a day.

A micro-hospital would have ten beds that would help serve the 25,000 primary care patients who are under the care of ChristianaCare primary care doctors in the Jennersville area.

“Our projections are that those will generally be at full occupancy,” said Schwartz.

Micro-hospitals are also known as neighborhood hospitals and are designed to fill gaps in coverage in areas that are unable to support a full-scale hospital while at the same time providing health systems with an opportunity to expand their reach into more distant communities.

Read more about Jennersville Hospital reopening as a micro-hospital in The Philadelphia Inquirer.

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