Main Line Health CEO Jack Lynch will retire next June after 20 years at the nonprofit health system

Main Line Health CEO Jack Lynch will retire next June after 20 years at the nonprofit health system, Main Line announced Wednesday.

Lynch, 64, led Main Line through an era of significant growth and investment in hospital campuses and outpatient facilities, but since COVID-19 has contended with steep annual losses at the system that historically was among the financially strongest in the region.

During his tenure, Main Line acquired Riddle Hospital and built new patient pavilions there and at its three other acute-care hospitals. It also acquired Mirmont Treatment Center, an inpatient facility for substance-use treatment, and developed an extensive outpatient footprint.

Lynch emphasized behavioral health services and looked for ways to overcome health disparities in health-care access and outcomes in Main Line’s communities.

His leadership also guided Main Line through its 2014 split from the former Jefferson Health System, which had been its longtime financial partner.

Several years ago, Lynch decided that two decades at the helm of Main Line marked the right time to step aside. “I’m excited about the opportunity for someone to come in with the same level of energy and excitement and passion that I came in with,” he said in an interview Wednesday.

Lynch’s departure will add to generational turnover at Main Line, which was formed in 1985 through the merger of Lankenau Medical Center and Bryn Mawr Hospital. Paoli Hospital joined a year later. Longtime chief financial officer Michael Buongiorno retired last year after 25 years in the job. The health system’s general counsel Brian Corbett is retiring Nov. 1 after 30 years.

“We are profoundly grateful for Jack’s extraordinary contributions to Main Line Health. His strategic vision and dedication have been instrumental in our success,” Steve Higgins, chair of Main Line’s board of governors, said in a news release. “While we will miss his leadership, we are excited about the future and have begun the search for a new CEO to build upon Jack’s legacy.”

The board has hired Korn Ferry, a national executive search firm, to find Lynch’s successor. “My guess is they’ll have somebody in place that will allow for a reasonable overlap between me and the new person coming in, and a smooth transition,” Lynch said.

Main Line’s budget for fiscal 2025 anticipates the organization’s first operating profit since 2019 (aside from 2021 when government aid during the COVID-19 pandemic put it in the black).

“I’m committed to doing what I can to lead us to that level of performance,” Lynch said.

The system shrank its operating loss to about $60 million in the fiscal year that ended June 30 from $125 million the year before, Lynch said. The system had a $50 million operating loss during the first nine months of fiscal 2024, it reported in May.

Lynch added that a big focus has been on wringing costs out of the business.

Lynch wants to continue pushing Main Line’s expansion into ambulatory-care facilities, including one planned for the 73-acre St. Charles Borromeo Seminary campus in Wynnewood across Lancaster Avenue from Lankenau Medical Center.

A newer outpatient center is at the zoning planning stage in Downingtown. “We’re looking forward to having a strong ambulatory presence there,” Lynch said.

Main Line is not interested in being taken over by a bigger hospital system, Lynch said. With the help of a consultant, the board looked at whether such a merger made sense: “Does it get us a quality lift? Does it get us an equity and safety lift, you know? Is it going to lower our cost?”

The merger idea was rejected because there are too many examples of organizations that became giants and still struggle. “Size has not resulted in them having strong financial performance,” Lynch said.

Lynch wants his successor to be a people person. He said he wants to be replaced by someone as “committed to quality, safety, equity, and affordability” as “I have been and our organization is.”

As a manager, the person will have to have “a good track record of interacting with full-time employed physicians as well as private-practice physicians” — because Main Line has both.

The new CEO will have to be adept at navigating partnerships, such as those Main Line has with Thomas Jefferson University and the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine to train doctors and health-care workers, and Jefferson Health and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia for clinical services.

Lynch said he was particularly pleased with the new partnership with CHOP, which replaced Nemours as Main Line’s clinical partner for pediatrics.

The switch didn’t happen because Nemours wasn’t good.

“It was because CHOP was building a facility in King of Prussia. They were more proximal to us. And you know, our community, quite frankly, was more interested in the partnership with CHOP,” Lynch said.