For nearly a century Geisinger Health System has provided superior healthcare services to the communities we serve in northeast and central Pennsylvania. We are proud of our non-profit mission and work every day to ensure we meet the healthcare needs of the region for years to come. Our organization has taken major steps recently in achieving that goal.
As a successful not-for-profit health organization, our financial strength allows us to reinvest in our people, programs, services, facilities and technology. In addition to our approximate $1.2 billion in annual salaries/benefits, etc., we have also invested more than $1 billion in capital expenditures over the past decade.
Geisinger's integrated healthcare system has become a nationally-recognized model of care delivery. Looking forward, Geisinger is firmly committed to staying on the forefront of innovation and quality, providing value to our patients and members, finding the most efficient and effective ways to deliver care and collaborating with organizations in the communities we serve. We hope you find this website useful as we continue to grow.
Geisinger Health System (Geisinger) serves more than 2.6 million residents in 44 counties as a not-for-profit, fully integrated health services organization that is dedicated to excellence in care,education, research, and service. The physician-led system includes a multidisciplinary physician group practice with system-wide aligned goals, successful clinical programs, a sophisticated information technology platform, a robust research program, and an insurance provider (GHP).
Geisinger Clinic is widely regarded as a national model of healthcare delivery centered around a cutting-edge multispecialty group practice of more than 900 primary and specialty physicians who practice at Geisinger hospitals, as well as at non-Geisinger hospitals throughout the region.
Geisinger Medical Center (GMC), the largest tertiary/quaternary care teaching hospital in northeastern and central Pennsylvania, has earned a reputation for providing leading-edge medicine and treating the most critically ill patients. GMC is licensed for 475 beds, including 89 pediatric beds in the Janet Weis Children's Hospital. GMC maintains the region's only Level I Regional Resource Trauma Center with additional qualifications in pediatrics.
GMC offers a comprehensive array of highly specialized medical and surgical services, including neurosciences, cardiovascular services, transplantation, women's health (in GMC's Women's Pavilion), pediatrics, orthopedics, and oncology.
Outpatient services, including endoscopy and same-day surgery, are available on GMC's main campus, as well as at the GMC Outpatient Surgery Center-Woodbine Lane campus.
GMC's newest addition, the Hospital for Advanced Medicine, serves as an integrated center for the most critically ill patients. This 308,000-square-foot "hospital within a hospital" houses nine stories of patient-focused space, including acuity adaptable beds that can convert from intensive care to recovery as the patient progresses. The hospital offers state-of-the-art inpatient and physician office facilities with cardiovascular services residing within the building, a new 32,000-square-foot surgical suite equipped with sophisticated robotic and interventional medical equipment and shell space for future growth. This hospital is LEED-eligible (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design), with environmentally friendly designs, recycled materials used in its construction, and increased energy efficiency achieved by maximizing natural window light in patient rooms and offices.
Geisinger Northeast is an innovative healthcare model featuring one hospital-Geisinger Wyoming Valley-with two campuses.
Geisinger Wyoming Valley Medical Center (GWV) in Plains Township is an acute tertiary care center that brings advanced clinical services to northeastern Pennsylvania. Licensed for 242 beds, GWV's state-of-the-art Critical Care Building houses the only Level II Trauma Center in Luzerne County. The GWV campus includes the Frank M. and Dorothea Henry Cancer Center, the Richard and Marion Pearsall Heart Hospital (an accredited Chest Pain Center), the Janet Weis Children's Hospital Pediatric Unit, a transplant program, the Brain & Spine Tumor Institute, and more. GWV's Women's Health Program and various specialty clinics are offered at facilities in close proximity to GWV's main campus.
Geisinger South Wilkes-Barre is GWV's regional ambulatory campus. It offers an array of same-day health services, including adult and pediatric Urgent Care Centers, inpatient and outpatient rehabilitation, same-day surgery, pain and sleep centers, and more.
Geisinger Medical Groups (GMG) bring Geisinger expertise and advanced services to communities throughout central and northeastern Pennsylvania through a network of 38 physician office locations. In addition to providing primary and specialty care, the medical groups offer patients the opportunity to participate in clinical trials and research initiatives in collaboration with Geisinger's research centers, creating evidence that is both timely and directly relevant to clinical care. In conjunction with GHP, the medical groups also offer their own unique model of medical home, called ProvenHealth Navigator-a program that embeds nurse case managers in the medical group offices in an effort to advance chronic disease prevention and care management that have resulted in reduced hospital admissions, readmissions, and emergency room visits.
Geisinger Health Plan (GHP) plays an important role in the success and mission of Geisinger Health System. Based in Danville, GHP provides insurance coverage to 250,000 residents in 42 counties in Pennsylvania and has a provider network with more than 4,000 PCPs and 27,000 specialists and 94 hospitals. GHP offers a wide range of products including HMO, PPO, employer self-funded, and high-deductible plans at affordable rates for individuals, families, employer groups, and Medicare beneficiaries.
In recent years, GHP has earned national recognition for quality services. In 2008, GHP was named "Outstanding Health Plan" by the nation's premier disease management trade group, DMAA: The Care Continuum Alliance. For the third consecutive year, GHP was the top-ranked commercial and Medicare health plan in Pennsylvania and among the top 10 commercial and Medicare health plans in the nation, according to the National Committee for Quality Assurance's (NCQA) Health Insurance Plan Rankings 2010-2011, Private and Medicare.
GHP has received national attention for innovative programs designed to improve the quality of care its members receive while controlling healthcare costs. ProvenHealth Navigator SM, for example, helps members with complex medical histories and their families navigate through the wide variety of healthcare services available.
GHP also offers programs accredited by the NCQA that provide members with specialized instruction on how to manage specific disorders such as asthma, diabetes, and congestive heart failure. These programs help members better control their symptoms and improve their quality of life. Through innovative partnerships with organizations such as the American Cancer Society, GHP reaches out to members to ensure they receive breast and colorectal cancer screenings, as needed.
An early adopter of pay for performance, GHP posts the quality ratings of its participating provider offices' on GHP's website, www.thehealthplan.com. The web report, called Physician Quality Summary, measures primary care provider offices on nine quality and customer service measures, including preventive health measures, chronic care measures, member satisfaction and access, office hours, efficiency of care, and emergency care. In addition, quality information regarding hospitals is also listed on GHP's website.
LifeFlight Air Ambulance
LifeFlight® LifeFlight is a component of the system's response to critical care transport needs, with six air ambulances operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week from the following locations:
In 2010, Geisinger expanded its LifeFlight helicopter air ambulance program by adding a new state-of-the art-helicopter (an American Eurocopter 145 or EC145) at its Williamsport, PA base. Also in 2010, LifeFlight pilots and medical teams completed Night Vision Goggle training; teams at the Avoca, Williamsport, and State College bases are now equipped with night-vision goggles.
LifeFlight transported nearly 2,600 patients to the nearest qualified trauma center in FY 2010; 2,082 of these patients were transported to GMC (Danville) or GWV (Plains Township).
Henry Hood Center for Health Research
Located on the GMC campus, the Hood Center is focused on developing knowledge that is centered on a patient's need to maintain or improve health. The Hood Center is home to GCHR, GCCS, Geisinger Health Sciences Library, Research Administration, and a conference center.
Sigfried and Janet Weis Center for Research
The Weis Center, Geisinger's basic science research facility located on the GMC campus, conducts original and innovative research that contributes new knowledge to biomedical science, with a focus on molecular and cellular mechanisms. A major initiative of the Weis Center is the genomics core, a project carried out in collaboration with the GCHR.
Geisinger Ventures
The corporate venture arm of Geisinger Health System, Ventures, is dedicated to leveraging Geisinger assets to:
Translate medical innovation to practical clinical use
Improve quality and service for Geisinger patients
Promote reinvestment of capital into Geisinger Foundation
Affiliates include:
Geisinger Community Health Services
Geisinger Community Health Services (GCHS) is a not-for-profit organization that annually provides healthcare services to nearly 60,000 patients in the communities in which they live and work.
GCHS is committed to advocacy, excellence, and innovation in the provision of services that complement and expand the continuum of care provided by the health system. GCHS programs include:
International Shared Services, Inc.
This company is a wholly owned, for-profit subsidiary of Geisinger Medical Management Corporation. It provides comprehensive clinical engineering and computer technology services to providers both within and outside Geisinger.
Marworth Alcohol & Chemical Dependency Treatment Center
Located in Waverly, PA, Marworth is recognized as a national leader in the treatment of alcohol and chemical addictions. Marworth has 91 beds and provides three levels of treatment: outpatient, intensive outpatient with partial hospitalization, and inpatient detoxification and rehabilitation.
Providing high-quality care is paramount to all we do. It's our core mission, and is the reason for every research study, clinical initiative or training and education effort we do.
It matters so much to use because it affects the lives of so many in this region.
This focus and dedication has led us to build a model of care that is now nationally-recognized for both caring for patients well, as well as preparing a nation for healthcare under reform.
Thanks to the hard work of our medical professionals and staff, Geisinger is proud to have received the following awards for the care we provide.
Our nationally-recognized network of care is making headlines across the country. Driven by our employees, the research we do is part of what puts us on the leading edge of being prepared for the future of healthcare - and the changes with reform.
At the same time, our efforts make a significant impact here at home. With programs like you see below, people are literally becoming healthier individuals, and, as a result, our entire population is strengthened.
All of these innovations are made possible through $12.5 million spent on our research, investment in our people, more than $130 million in technology like Electronic Health Records (EHR) and collaborations among our organizations and with community partners.
Geisinger's sophisticated health information technology (HIT) enables caregivers to provide consistent care at a reduced cost across the system's footprint through a number of innovative initiatives. A sampling of these programs follows.
ProvenCare®
ProvenCare is a multipronged approach to providing quality care at a reduced cost. ProvenCare, a collaborative effort between Geisinger Clinic and Geisinger Health Plan (GHP), relies on the redesign of care processes and Geisinger's advanced electronic health record (EHR) to create and standardize evidence-based best-practice "bundles" of care. Findings show that the program has significantly increased adherence with guidelines and improved clinical outcomes.
Strategic Priorities:
ProvenCare® Acute Episodic
Recognized by The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Financial Times, and others, the model features a global price that covers all aspects of preadmission, inpatient, and follow-up care at a Geisinger facility, as well as any care including readmission, due to postoperative complications within a 90-day period. Originally designed for coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery, the model has been expanded to cover other surgical and interventional procedures related to bariatric surgery, hip replacement, and cataract surgery. Results consistently show decreased mortality, rates of infection and other complications, length of stay, and readmission rates. The ProvenCare Acute Episodic Care Portfolio includes:
ProvenCare® Chronic Disease
Following many of the principles of the ProvenCare Acute Episodic model, this initiative expands bundling to the chronic care continuum—providing care in the hospital, in physicians' offices, at home, or in other settings. It also covers adult disease prevention. Payment arrangements include a quality-based incentive program for primary care providers (PCPs). As with the acute episodic model, evidence-based, standardized best practices are hardwired into the EHR to ensure that every patient receives every element of care, every time. The ProvenCare Chronic Disease portfolio includes:
Care Gaps
Geisinger's staff leverages the system's EHR to deliver targeted, optimum care. By systematically identifying patients who are due for regular screenings, vaccinations, and testing as part of an overall wellness standard—e.g., colonoscopy, mammograms, flu and pneumonia vaccines, tetanus boosters, bone density screening— Geisinger closes preventive, chronic, and restorative care gaps for targeted patient populations by age/gender, disease, or condition. As of July 2010, 50,872 care gaps were closed, with a net contribution margin of $5 million.
Keystone Beacon Community Award
Geisinger was awarded a $16 million grant to create the Keystone Beacon Community as part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Beacon Community cooperative program.
The Keystone Beacon Community, which builds on the KeyHIE secure electronic infrastructure, will focus on improving continuity, quality, and efficiency of patient care. At the same time, it will leverage electronic connectivity to smooth patient transitions throughout the care continuum—primary care, free clinics, inpatient, outpatient, and home health and skilled nursing facilities.
The funding will allow Geisinger to extend the benefits of its patient-focused HIT initiatives, including PHN, to other healthcare providers throughout Columbia, Montour, Northumberland, Snyder, and Union counties. Ultimately, the plan is to roll out the service regionally to illustrate that improved patient outcomes resulting from HIT and care coordination can be achieved beyond the walls of institutions such as Geisinger.
ProvenHealth Navigator (Advanced Medical Home)
ProvenHealth Navigator (PHN), a collaboration between GHP and Geisinger Clinic, is the system's patient-centered advanced medical home initiative.
Rolled out in 2007, PHN is designed to drive sustained changes in healthcare quality and value by providing physician-directed, team-based care. The model is designed to improve the quality of care provided in physician offices through the implementation of a series of patient-centered, integrated, physician-guided, cost-effective, and evidenced-based longitudinal protocols.
Results of a Geisinger study published in the August 2010 edition of the American Journal of Managed Care show that PHN is capable of simultaneously improving quality and reducing costs, while enhancing physician and patient satisfaction.
The observational study looked at four years of claims data for approximately 15,000 of GHP's Medicare Advantage members at 11 of Geisinger's community practice sites. When compared with a control group, over the past three years PHN reduced hospital 30-day readmissions by 40% and overall hospital admissions by 20%. Additionally, the cost of care for PHN patients was 7% less than the cost of care for patients in the control group.
Today, PHN has been adopted at 31 Geisinger community practice sites, one internal medicine practice, and five non-Geisinger practice sites. It employs 61 case managers (paid for by GHP) who work in physician offices. By early 2011, PHN will be rolled out to the remaining Geisinger community practice sites as well as to other contracted practices.
Personalized Health
One of the key focuses of research in the next 10 years will be personalized health, the use of environmental and genomic information to help predict how well a patient will react to a therapy.
By adding genetic information into a treatment protocol, physicians are able to work with patients to make better treatment decisions. As shown in the figure below, Geisinger has developed a variety of
programs in support of personalized health initiatives.
Applying Personalized Health to the Study of Obesity
One of the distinguishing characteristics of research at Geisinger is the ability to work with clinical partners and other research entities within and outside the system. Geisinger's Obesity Institute is a perfect example.
Working with the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen) in Phoenix, researchers at Geisinger's Obesity Institute are looking at possible genetic reasons why so many Americans are overweight, and why diet, exercise, and specifically, bariatric surgery, may fail to significantly reduce excess weight in some patients.
Geisinger and TGen also are leveraging each other's expertise to uncover genetic mutations that predispose patients to diseases such as congestive heart failure, abdominal aortic aneurysms, and the potential side effects of prescription drugs.
Over the years, Geisinger has developed a model of care based on innovation, quality and value. Our commitment to these three areas has allowed us to become a financially strong organization - a result which helps us carry forward our not-for-profit mission of care that reinvests every dollar back into the care we provide. Below is a snapshot of how our dollars were used in 2011.
Geisinger ended fiscal year 2011* with an operating income, after interest expense, of $180.9 million, a 6.8% return on $2.7 billion of revenue. The economic benefit to Pennsylvania (from direct spending and an indirect ripple effect of spending) totaled $5.5 billion, as reported by The Hospital and Health System Association of Pennsylvania. Despite the challenges of a weak economy, the uncertainty of health care reform, and continued reimbursement shortfalls in FY 10, Geisinger provided $265.9 million (13.0% of operating expenses of the tax exempt organizations) of community benefits, including uncompensated care and care provided under government programs at less than cost. Revenue grew by 13.8% over FY 2010, a remarkable achievement in the current environment and the highly regulated, competitive healthcare industry. In addition, Geisinger invested $114.2 million in capital projects.
* July 1, 2010-June 30, 2011
As a not-for-profit organization, we are accountable to the communities we serve—not to shareholders. This means we are wise stewards of resources, demonstrating that stewardship in many ways:
Click Here to visit Geisinger's News Room for the latest Geisinger-related news in one convenient location (Note: a new window will open).
Click Here to visit Geisinger's Quality Measures page (Note: a new window will open).
Our century-old mission to care for this region is rooted in our establishment as a not-for-profit provider of care. But what does that mean? For us, it's simple. Being a not-for-profit provider of care means:
Our not-for-profit model of care is one that the nation is watching because it has led to clinical and financial success. We are proud to share that success with our communities by contributing $277.5 million in community support during the year ended June 30, 2011—which is 12.6 percent of our operating expenses and more than two times greater than the amount of community service necessary to meet Pennsylvania's standards as a charitable mission.
Throughout our century-old mission, Geisinger has focused on the health of Northeast and Central Pennsylvania. Even as we grow our state-wide presence and national impact, our focus is still on the people of the 44 counties we serve today. With healthcare as our first priority, we are also deeply invested in related community partnerships, charity, job creation, support for local governments and simply helping where we can.
We're proud to invest this way, and we don't take the responsibility to be a good community partner lightly.
The organizations throughout Northeast and Central Pennsylvania are strong representations of what makes our community unique. We are proud to foster the following partnerships that focus on strengthening our communities - whether directly healthcare related or not.
Partnering with two regional organizations-ACTION Health in the Central Susquehanna Valley and Healthy Northeast PA in the Wilkes-Barre and Scranton area - Geisinger identified a variety of community health needs. These findings are helping determine the organization's short- and long-term priorities and strategies for improving health. Priorities identified include access to healthcare services and preventive care, diabetes, mental health, obesity, and treatment for substance abuse.
We know that not everyone can pay for their healthcare - but we are committed to ensuring that no one goes without it. That's why we have created a generous charity care policy that covers patients whose financial circumstances or health insurance status make it difficult for them to pay for any or all of their care.
To learn more about our charity care program, please download this brochure.
While our focus is on the healthcare of communities in Northeast and Central Pennsylvania, Geisinger's economic impact is felt across the state.
In addition to contributing resources to our community, we are proud to also invest employee energy into a variety of community endeavors. As a system, we donate $3.5 million in services provided by volunteers. Below is just a handful of community organizations with which we volunteer:
For nearly a century, Geisinger has provided superior healthcare services to the families of this region. Geisinger's history is steeped in community service, and marked by a long-standing commitment to continuously improving healthcare quality and value. It all stared with one woman, Abigail Geisinger.
Born and raised in Danville, daughter of a wagon-maker, Abigail A. Geisinger was a down-to-earth woman of average education and life experiences. But some force engendered in her the indomitable spirit, the forthrightness, and the clarity of vision that led her, at the age of 85, to build a hospital that ultimately became Geisinger Health System. "Make my hospital right; make it the best," she demanded of Harold L. Foss, M.D., the young physician she chose for her first surgeon-in-chief.
Foss shared her vision and brought to it the professional expertise that would change the dream to reality. Trained at the Mayo Clinic he had become committed to the concept of group practice, where specialty-trained physicians worked together to benefit their patients. Mrs. Geisinger concurred. It was a bold step in the early 1900s which has made Geisinger Medical Center the largest rural health care facility in the United States.
Harold Leighton Foss, MD, formed and guided the Geisinger Hospital through its first 43 years and pioneered modern rural health care administration. Dr. Foss was born on St. Valentine's Day, 1883 in Malden, MA. He studied at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and, in 1909, received his medical degree with honors, from Jefferson Medical College. Foss interned at Philadelphia General Hospital and, from 1910 to 1912, practiced medicine and surgery in a tiny Alaskan hospital at the edge of the Arctic Circle.
He first met Mrs. Abigail A. Geisinger in 1913 and helped her lay her plans for the George R. Geisinger Memorial Hospital and ultimately, for what would become Geisinger Health System. When the hospital opened in 1915, Foss was the first surgeon. In those early days, he later recalled, he "cared for typhoid patients, delivered the babies, performed all manner of surgical procedures - helped drive the ambulance, experimented with the electric light plant, fluoroscope stomachs and colons, met with the board, engaged new help, ordered supplies." Out of the operating room, as the hospital's superintendent and chief of staff, Dr. Foss became a prototype of the twentieth-century health care executive.
Throughout his years at Geisinger he maintained a two-fold commitment to good medicine, a commitment that meant putting the best medical equipment in the hand of the most skilled medical people. Before embarking on his long career in Danville, he had served a 20-month fellowship as chief assistant to Dr. William Mayo, and he never wavered from the start the Mayo brothers gave him in medicine and medical administration. To the end of his life, he kept photographs of Dr. Will and Dr. Charlie in his office as a reminder of the way he felt medicine should be practiced. As an acknowledgment of his own medical distinction, Dr. Foss received many honors, including the presidency of the American College of Surgeons.
During the Foss years, Geisinger's structure and staff grew dramatically from its original 70 beds, until his retirement in 1958 it had more than 300 beds and more than 500 employees and admitting over 11,000 patients a year.
Being not-for-profit means that patients, their families and the communities we serve are our number one priority. Unlike for-profit organizations that have to answer to shareholders, we reinvest every dollar we make back into patient care, facilities, technology and our workforce.
We have long been focused on innovative approaches to providing quality and value for our patients and health plan members. Innovative programs such as ProvenHealth Navigator (our version of patient-centered, advanced medical home), Transitions of Care and ProvenCare ensure best practice, quality and efficient healthcare services. This consistent attention to quality and value, our efforts to make Geisinger care available close to where people live and work, and the overall effort of our employees results in operational and financial success.
As a not-for-profit healthcare system, we proudly reinvest earnings where they belong—back into the health system and the community. For example:
Organizations must contribute 5% of their operating expenses to community support to be considered a charitable institution in Pennsylvania. Our success enables us to contribute much more than is required. Our community support in fiscal year 2011, for example, is approximately 12.6% of our operating expenses—more than two times what is required to meet the state's standards as a charitable mission.
We are always evaluating how to provide patients and members the most value for their healthcare dollar, and work daily toward being as efficient and cost effective as possible. We treat people regardless of their ability to pay, and provide care at reduced and free rates every day. Just last year, we provided $181 million in care to the elderly and the poor that was not covered by Medicare or Medicaid, and another $26 million in free, charity care to patients who could not afford to pay.
Geisinger Health Plan offers a variety of coverage options for those with varying financial resources, and collaborates with clinicians throughout the region to ensure members are reaching their optimal health. This helps to reduce costs and keep members healthy and out of the hospital.
As hospitals throughout our region struggle with declining reimbursements and the challenging economy, many are looking for ways to partner with strong organizations like Geisinger. Through mergers and partnerships with select organizations that share our commitment to patients and quality, we are strengthening community assets and the area's healthcare delivery system.
We are investing in partnerships that make sense for central and northeast Pennsylvania, helping to ensure a strong not-for-profit regional system continues to meet the needs of patients and the community—including Geisinger-Shamokin Area Community Hospital, Geisinger-Bloomsburg Hospital and Geisinger-Community Medical Center in Scranton. Our physicians also provide specialty services in hospitals and communities throughout the region, and we are utilizing our expertise in telemedicine to provide long-distance care for the sickest patients in locations such as Lewistown and Schuylkill County.
Since our founder Abigail Geisinger first said, "Make my hospital right, make it the best," nearly a century ago, our primary focus has always been doing what is right and best for patients. While we do work to be cost-efficient—as every responsible organization does—we never do so at the expense of quality care, and we work daily to ensure quality and value for all that we serve.
Please use the form provided below to send us a message or contact us with any questions you may have.
