Brian A. Nester, DO, is Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, Jefferson, a role he has held since Lehigh Valley Health Network (LVHN) became part of Jefferson Health in 2024. In this role, he provides executive leadership for the combined organization. Dr. Nester also serves as President of LVHN, providing strategic direction for all operations, facilities and functions within the legacy LVHN.  

Prior to this role, Dr. Nester was President and Chief Executive Officer of LVHN, a position he held for 10 years. He joined LVHN as the Chairman of the Emergency Department at Lehigh Valley Hospital–Muhlenberg in 1998, after an academic post in the emergency department at Albert Einstein Medical Center in Philadelphia. He served in numerous administrative roles at LVHN, including Associate Vice Chair for the Department of Emergency Medicine, Internship Program Director for the Emergency Medicine Residency Program, Chairman of the Lehigh Valley Physician Hospital Organization, Senior Vice President for Physician Hospital Network Development and Chief Strategy Officer.

Dr. Nester also serves as the Board Chair for Populytics, Inc., an LVHN for-profit subsidiary company dedicated to health care analytics and the prospective risk-stratification of populations utilizing claims and clinical data sets.

Dr. Nester is a past Board Member of The Hospital and Healthsystem Association of Pennsylvania, a past member of the American Hospital Association (AHA) Regional Policy Board (Region 2) and currently serves as a member of the AHA Health Systems Committee. He is also a member of the Healthcare & Pharmaceutical Management Program Advisory Board at Columbia University and has been an annual guest lecturer at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Business and Mailman School of Public Health on issues related to health care reform, value-based care delivery and strategy for the last two decades.

Dr. Nester received his Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine and Master of Science degrees from the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine and completed his residency in Emergency Medicine at the Albert Einstein Medical Center in Philadelphia. He received his Master of Business Administration from Columbia University in New York and he is a Certified Physician Executive through the American Association for Physician Leadership. Dr. Nester also completed his Certificate of Professional Development in Finance from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

Dr. Nester is a firm believer that “the health of our overall community is only as good as the least healthy segments of our community.” For this reason, Jefferson and LVHN emphasize population health analytics and tactics for identifying vulnerable and at-risk patients as a strategy for improving health care value and driving sustainable financial performance.