Crozer-Chester Medical Center and Taylor Hospital emergency rooms reopened Tuesday after radiology services were restored

The emergency departments at Crozer-Chester Medical Center and Taylor Hospital abruptly closed Tuesday for three hours because they lacked imaging services.

It was a technical problem, Crozer CEO Tony Esposito said.

The facilities reopened at around 1:45 p.m., according to Crozer and Delaware County emergency dispatch services.

Patients were diverted to other hospitals in Delaware County. The next-closest hospitals are Riddle Hospital in Media and Mercy Fitzgerald between Darby and Lansdowne, close to 10 miles away.

Crozer’s longtime radiology services provider, Southeast Radiology Ltd., disbanded last June. Crozer has been using teleradiology provider RadLinx since then.

In an email to staff late Tuesday afternoon, Crozer management said the health system is switching to a company called Northern Light for those services as of Saturday.

The temporary loss of radiology services at Crozer and Taylor recalled what happened at Crozer’s Delaware County Memorial Hospital in Drexel Hill in the fall of 2022. In that case, however, the hospital didn’t have enough staff to provide radiology services, so the Pennsylvania Department of Health ordered Crozer to close the ED. That led to the closure of the entire hospital for inpatient services.

The temporary failure of Crozer’s radiology services came five weeks after the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office took the unprecedented move of petitioning a Delaware County court to give the state control of the financially beleaguered health system.

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Crozer’s owner, Prospect Medical Holdings Inc., is trying to move that legal fight to federal court in Philadelphia.

Prospect previously had threatened to shut down key service lines, including the county’s only trauma unit. The next closest trauma units are in Philadelphia and Delaware.

The legal action came after years of turmoil for Crozer, the largest health-care provider in Delaware County.

Crozer Health has been under for-profit ownership since 2016, including several years under the control of a Los Angeles private equity firm. In that time, two of Crozer’s four hospitals have closed, and the system has endured numerous rounds of layoffs.

State hospital inspectors get called to Crozer facilities for safety problems and complaints almost twice as often as to other area hospitals.

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Editor’s note: This story was updated to note the latest developments, including reopening of the emergency departments, and to correct the name of the radiology company Crozer has been using since July.