Geisinger College of Health Sciences unveils strategic plan

Jeff Horvath, The Times-Tribune, Scranton, Pa.
·2 min read

Oct. 24—SCRANTON — Formed last year to unite Geisinger's medical college, graduate school and nursing school, the Geisinger College of Health Sciences now has a strategic plan designed to make the umbrella institution thrive.

"Drive to THRIVE" — short for Transforming Health through Research, Inspiration, Value and Education — is a five-year plan built on the foundation of key pillars: education, research, and people and organization.

Highlighting the vision Monday at the second Geisinger Commonwealth Day, Julie Byerley, M.D., Geisinger College of Health Sciences president and Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine dean, said the plan reflects a commitment to the people future health care professionals will serve.

"Drive to THRIVE's vision is to make better health easy through education, research and scholarship that develop health care professionals inspired and prepared to improve the health of diverse people and populations," she said.

"Our learners will know the reality of today's clinical delivery and health insurance systems, and not only think how they should prepare themselves to succeed and serve in that system well, but also how they must as leaders nudge that system to be even easier for people."

The plan includes aspirations and strategic priorities for the College of Health Sciences over the next five years, including producing programs to better develop, attract and retain a regional workforce.

"The whole reason this school was founded was to create a physician workforce to serve the region, and now that we've expanded in the health professions that we're educating, that means even more to us," Byerley said.

The institution also will strive to bring research to the bedside, investing in scientific research priorities aligned with the needs of the health system and community.

Geisinger Chief Scientific Officer Christa Lese Martin, Ph.D., said 2023 represents the first year research and education were formally brought together under the college of health sciences umbrella.

"This new organizational structure has already begun to facilitate stronger collaborations between our research, education and clinical entities in areas such as population health, genomics, cancer, cardiology, mental health, bioethics and health system sciences," Martin said. "And we're really excited to see how all of those continue to grow over the next years."

In research, Byerley said the institution is "turning hypotheses into health" by implementing and disseminating results.

"Good health shouldn't be a trade secret," she said. "We want to model how it should be done, particularly in rural and disadvantaged communities with few resources."

Virginia McGregor, chair of the Geisinger College of Health Sciences' board, described the college as an "incredible hub of medical and scientific learning."

"We're going to take things that are uniquely Geisinger and apply them to education and research that will make us the model for the future of health care," McGregor said.

For more information on the strategic plan, visit go.geisinger.edu/drivetothrive.

Contact the writer: jhorvath@scrantontimes.com; 570-348-9141; @jhorvathTT on Twitter.