Reading Hospital in West Reading has a new president and CEO: William Jennings has been hired to fill the position effective Oct. 15.

Jennings comes to Reading Hospital from the Yale New Haven Health System, where he serves as executive vice president for the system and CEO of Bridgeport Hospital, an urban teaching hospital that is affiliated with the Yale University School of Medicine.

He will be taking over the Reading Hospital duties of Clint Matthews, president and CEO of Tower Health, who had continued to serve as president of Reading Hospital after the hospital acquired five other hospitals last September to create Tower Health.

Tower Health consists of Reading Hospital; Pottstown Hospital in Pottstown; Brandywine Hospital in Coatesville; Chestnut Hill Hospital in Philadelphia; Jennersville Hospital in West Grove; and Phoenixville Hospital in Phoenixville.

Matthews will oversee Jennings and the other five hospitals that make up Tower Health.

Matthews said this afternoon that while it is difficult for him to step away from the hospital’s presidency after doing so for eight years, he feels confident that Jennings is the right man to keep Reading Hospital growing in the right direction.

“He’s coming from a facility that is comparable in the portfolio of services, and he’s demonstrated his capabilities in increasing patient engagement as well as staff and physician engagement,” Matthews said.

Meanwhile, Matthews will concentrate on the oversight of all of the hospitals in Tower Health and the communities they serve and work to integrate the hospitals and their services into the many new regions they are now located.