Drive to THRIVE

Better Health Easier

In July, Geisinger College of Sciences unveiled its five-year strategic plan, Drive to THRIVE. And as the name indicates, Geisinger College is going places. In the driver’s seat are tools and ideas that college president Julie Byerley, MD, MPH, labels “uniquely Geisinger.”

The plan begins with a simple question: How does a College of Health Sciences — an academic enterprise dedicated to research and scholarship — make better health easier?

“Making better health easier sounds like a simple premise — but ‘easier’ requires an incredibly complex execution when it comes to modern systems and organizations. That’s why Drive to THRIVE emphasizes being ‘uniquely Geisinger.’ It’s our signature strength,” Dr. Byerley said.

Built around Research, Education and People, the plan relies on leaning into the “uniquely Geisinger” way of using data to constantly assess quality and value, then extending the concepts that animate precision medicine to students and learners.

"One of our intentions is to inspire the next generation of health professionals, inspire meaningful discovery, inspire each other toward wellness and teamwork and the feeling that they are making a difference.” — Julie Byerley, MD, MPH

Research: A focus on primary care

In the research sphere, that means close alignment with the needs of the system and the communities Geisinger serves, especially when it comes to prevention and primary care — two areas where “value” and “ease” are readily deployed. As Vice Dean for Research and Chief Scientific Officer Christa Martin, PhD, said, “We’re a learning health system where the data we generate every day is leveraged to discover how to take better care of patients. So why not do research in primary care?”

Dr. Martin explained that Geisinger has teams dedicated to decision sciences and behavioral insights, teams that analyze what motivates people to do things like take their medications and get flu shots and mammograms. “These insights are most powerful in the hands of a primary care doc,” Dr. Martin said. “They’re on the front lines, seeing patients most frequently.”

She added that Geisinger is in a unique place to do this because extensive patient data is routinely collected and stored in the electronic record. “We are set up to collect data as part of clinical care. And, with it, we encourage our learners to think, to ask questions and realize that they have their fingertips on the solutions,” Dr. Martin said. “This approach also helps us retain learners and recruit them back.”

Our strength is that students and learners say, ‘I was able to ask the question and there the data was in my hands’ versus you can’t even get your fingers on data to ask questions at most other places.” — Christa Martin, PhD

Education: Data-driven for better outcomes

In terms of education, uniquely Geisinger means inventive use of data coupled with what Dr. Byerley calls “confident humility” to do what’s right for patients, the community and learners.

“We're on the cutting edge of the use clinical data to drive educational and clinical outcomes,” said Michelle Thompson, MD, Vice Dean for Graduate Medical Education and Chief Education Officer. “The informatics and data structure inherent in our healthcare system allows us to improve the educational outcomes for our learners and outcomes for our patients.”

She added, “Precision medical education is a systemic approach of integrating data and using analytics to assess learners in a clinical setting, then using it to drive precise educational interventions or create individual learning plans.”

For example, clinical effectiveness scorecards are used in primary care residency clinics to assess how well residents are taking care of patients.

“We're helping residents understand this data as it relates to patients,” she said. “We're also looking at ways to begin to implement this in both assessment and teaching.”

Confident humility in education begins with modeling teamwork and community engagement.

“There's an inspiring servant-leader culture at Geisinger, where people are really more interested in the outcomes for those they serve than the fanfare they receive while doing so,” Dr. Byerley said. “We’re willing to innovate and change to create better outcomes. We aren’t wedded to the way things have always been done in medicine or medical education.”

“It’s nice to know if your clinical preceptor thinks you’re doing a good job in clinic but it’s even more important to know that you have good control over your patient’s diabetes.” — Michelle Thompson, MD

People: Expanding our view of diversity and inclusion

Community engagement is built into the curriculum for graduate students, nursing students and medical students — another “uniquely Geisinger” aspect of our educational programs. Next steps will rely upon the efforts of the college’s vice dean for health equity and inclusion, Valencia Walker, MD, MPH, who seeks to expand the way we think about diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI).

“There is an emphasis on people within the strategic plan,” Dr. Walker said. “And on how the way people work has changed since the pandemic. We know that there is truly a need to invest in people. So, when I think about DEI, I think about the need for growth in the institution that make efforts at inclusion and belonging — of a clear culture around professionalism — necessary.”

Addressing inclusion and belonging as evolving issues will be crucial to the institution’s future, she said.

However, she added, “We tend to talk about DEI from the lens of a multicultural society that reflects our larger urban cities. Issues around rural communities, veterans, disability status, social economic status and religion are often placed at a lower tier. So, while issues of gender and racial identity are important, we also have this rich tapestry where we're able to reflect these other populations and really serve them.”

Doing so, she notes, could also “offer solutions to the larger urban settings grappling with the ‘more traditional’ DEI issues.”

Naturally, being Geisinger, data will be used to back up confident humility. “After you’ve worked really hard, you need to ask — is this better? Has there been meaningful or sustainable structural change?” Dr. Walker said. “We’ll measure this with metrics of accountability.”

Those metrics will include retention of rural, disadvantaged and underrepresented-in-medicine students.

“Are we sustaining those efforts and, more importantly, are those students graduating?” she said. “Are we addressing the barriers that make it more challenging for women to advance in healthcare — and that's not just physicians, but staff. That type of data and knowing those results will drive action and create some accountability.”

“I would love for people to not necessarily feel overwhelmed by DEI work but to understand how it works seamlessly into the things they already do and are already great at doing.” -Valencia Walker, MD, MPH

Dr. Byerley said the final uniquely Geisinger piece of Drive to THRIVE is inspiration. “Our intention is to inspire, especially the real people that we serve — members of our community, the people we know and care about. It’s these people that make us truly committed to outcomes, prevention and value.”

To read our full plan, visit go.geisinger.edu/drivetothrive.