Doylestown Health Joins University Of Pennsylvania Health System

DOYLESTOWN, PA — Doylestown Health is now Penn Medicine Doylestown Health.

As a blizzard of confetti filled the air, Doylestown Health officially joined the University of Pennsylvania Health System (UPHS) on Tuesday during a milestone celebration at the Doylestown Hospital flagship campus.

“This truly is an historic and revolutionary day in our organization’s rich history. It’s a day of celebration, of gratitude as well as genuine and unbridled joy for what we have in our future,” said Penn Medicine Doylestown Health CEO Jim Brexler.

“Like other organizations that stand the test of time, we simply can’t continue to be relevant and indispensable to the communities we serve if we stand still in one place,” said Brexler. “Recognizing opportunities requires vision, but embracing them requires courage to re-imagine and reinvent yourself over and over again. One thing this organization has never done is stand still.

Jim Brexler, CEO of Penn Medicine Doylestown Health. (Jeff Werner/Patch)

(Jeff Werner/Patch)

“In joining with Penn Medicine, we are writing the next chapter in our storied history that began more than 100 years ago,” said Brexler. “Doylestown Hospital was founded with the principal mission to bring quality health care close to home for the patients we serve, and I can think of no better way to do that than by joining our region’s leading academic health system, which will allow for patients in our community to receive even more advanced care options.”

He added, “We’re joining an organization where standing still just isn’t in their DNA,” he added. “They are audacious, groundbreaking, innovative. Penn Medicine encourages big ideas, big thinking to solve problems.”

The joining of the two systems ironically happened on the 130th anniversary of the Village Improvement Association, which founded Doylestown Hospital a century ago and continues to guide its evolution.

“Today is indeed an historic day,” said Marianne Chabot, chair of the boards of Doylestown Hospital and the Doylestown Health Foundation and the vice president of health services for the Village Improvement Association. "Over the past century many, many board trustees like my colleagues and I today, have nurtured, encouraged, supported and propelled this institution ever forward through revolutionary changes in medicine all while embracing the work of seeing it grow and develop a tremendous reputation of all that is possible in community health care.”

Marianne Chabot, chair of the boards of Doylestown Hospital and the Doylestown Health Foundation and the Vice President of Health Services for the Village Improvement Association.

Confetti fills the air as Doylestown Health becomes Penn Medicine Doylestown Health. (Jeff Werner/Patch)

UPHS CEO Kevin B. Mahoney. (Jeff Werner/Patch)

Dr. Jonathan Epstein, Dean of the Perelman School of Medicine and Executive Vice President, University of Pennsylvania Health System. (Jeff Werner/Patch)

Doylestown Hospital, founded more than 100 years ago, provides a wide range of inpatient and outpatient hospital care, including advanced surgical procedures, comprehensive specialty services, and wellness-education programs. The 245-bed community teaching hospital has a medical staff of 600 providers in more than 50 specialties.

“Doylestown Health’s integration into Penn Medicine is a key part of our strategy to reimagine care,” said UPHS CEO Kevin B. Mahoney. “Our goal is to transform health care into a source of ease and reassurance - simplifying care delivery, making it more accessible for patients, and creating a seamless, supportive experience at every step. By combining trusted community care with the resources and expertise available through Penn Medicine, we ensure that high-quality, compassionate treatment is always within reach of patients in Bucks County and beyond.”

As part of the integration, two members of the Penn Medicine Doylestown Health board will be appointed by Penn Medicine, and likewise, two Doylestown trustees will join Penn Medicine’s Board of Trustees. The integration will build upon successful existing collaborations between the two organizations. These include Penn Radiation Oncology Doylestown, which has served more than 400 patients annually since its 2011 opening, and Doylestown Hospital's decade-long participation in the Penn Cancer Network, which provides patients with expanded access to advanced treatments and clinical trials through the Abramson Cancer Center.

“The banner that you see here says that Doylestown Health is proud to be part of Penn Medicine. Penn Medicine is very proud to partner with Doylestown Health,” said Dr. Jonathan Epstein, Dean of the Perelman School of Medicine and Executive Vice President of the University of Pennsylvania Health System. “In my 30 years at Penn Medicine I’ve seen an incredible trajectory of an increase in caring for patients in the most outstanding way in innovation and most importantly - in collaboration.

“Penn Medicine and Doylestown Health is defined by the people who work there and by the patients who get their care there. And it’s also defined by a culture. And at Penn Medicine, that has been a culture of collaboration for many years.

“That collaboration is the secret sauce that has led to continued improvements in care and also the incorporation of the greatest technologies to achieve that care, to new discoveries that improve care, to curing diseases with new medicines."

He continued, "Just in the past decade or so we've seen new gene therapies to cure blindness in kids discovered at Penn Medicine, new drugs for Alzheimer's Disease coming out of work done at Penn Medicine, MRNA technologies that led to the COVID vaccines and transformative therapies for cancer ... Let’s continue to provide the best possible care together. Let's continue to innovate and let’s continue to find new cures and new therapies for our patients together.”

Doylestown Hospital becomes the seventh Penn Medicine hospital. In addition to its three Philadelphia hospitals— the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, and Pennsylvania Hospital — Chester County Hospital, Lancaster General Health, and Princeton Health are part of UPHS, having joined in 2013, 2015, and 2018, respectively.