In January, James Woodward to step down as CEO of Trinity Health Mid-Atlantic

Trinity Health Mid-Atlantic CEO James L. Woodward is set to retire in January, according to an announcement made by the health system on Friday. Woodward initially joined the Philadelphia region in 2016 as the CEO of St. Mary Medical Center in Langhorne. Two years later, he took on the role of CEO of a group of five hospitals owned by Trinity Health of Livonia, Michigan, which was named Trinity Health Mid-Atlantic. The hospitals within this group included St. Mary, Nazareth in Northeast Philadelphia, Mercy Fitzgerald in Darby, Mercy Philadelphia in West Philadelphia, and St. Francis in Wilmington.

Originally, Trinity Health had planned to close Mercy Philadelphia in 2020; however, the University of Pennsylvania Health System stepped in and kept the hospital open in a modified form. Trinity Health, renowned as one of the largest Catholic hospital systems in the nation, reported $1.1 billion in revenue from its nonprofit hospitals in the Philadelphia area for the year ending on June 30, 2023. This figure marked a decline from the $2.2 billion in revenue documented in fiscal 2018, as per the audited financial statements released.

One of the contributing factors to this revenue decrease was the 2019 sale of Lourdes Health System in South Jersey to Virtua Health. At the time of its ownership by Trinity, Lourdes had generated $542 million in revenue in its final year. Moreover, Trinity Health sold St. Francis Medical Center in Trenton to Capital Health in 2022, resulting in the closure of the facility. Becker’s Hospital Review had previously reported Woodward’s upcoming retirement.