Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine
Community well-being As a system, Geisinger has devoted significant resources to examining the unique health needs of the communities it serves and proposing novel solutions that can be applied locally, but transferred globally. From Springboard Healthy Scranton to the health system’s innovative Fresh Food Farmacy®, Geisinger believes that if it can solve common health problems like obesity and Type 2 diabetes in our part of Pennsylvania, those solutions can be carried across the nation and around the world. Nowhere is this belief put into action more vigorously than at Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine. The School of Medicine plays a central role in the well-being of its home communities. Our impact is felt economically (Geisinger has an annual $9.9 billion positive impact on the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s economy), but more importantly, it’s felt in the ways our presence enriches and uplifts our neighbors. Geisinger Commonwealth is most visibly concerned with bettering lives and improving the healthcare workforce through medical education and advanced fellowships, but our academic focus begins as early as grade school. Our REACH-HEI (Regional Education Academy for Careers in Health – Higher Education Initiative) program is an out-of-school experience that provides academic enrichment opportunities and enables students in northeast Pennsylvania to succeed in health-related professions. A longitudinal program helping middle school, high school and undergraduate students, REACH-HEI has a proven track record of success, with hundreds
of its program participants successfully completing their high school and college goals. In 2017, the first cohort of high school students graduated from universities — and some have joined their Geisinger Commonwealth REACH-HEI family as students in the school’s doctor of medicine (MD) and master of biomedical sciences (MBS) programs. The School of Medicine also cares about behavioral health in the region. Market intelligence firm Open Minds, working on behalf of Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine’s Behavioral Health Initiative (BHI), concluded that a 7-county region in northeast Pennsylvania would need to increase its number of psychiatrists by 40 percent simply to meet current need. As a result of those data, in 2015 BHI generated a key recommendation: The School of Medicine and The Wright Center for Graduate Medical Education should co-create a psychiatry residency program to train new doctors in this desperately needed specialty. Just two years later, The Wright Center welcomed four residents to its brand-new, ACGME-accredited (Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education) psychiatry residency program. Every year since, a Geisinger Commonwealth graduate has matched into the program. In addition, in 2018 the School of Medicine welcomed nationally renowned psychiatrist Leighton Huey, MD, as associate dean for Behavioral Health Integration and Community Care Transformation. Since Dr. Huey’s arrival, BHI has launched integration of care efforts in partnership with local agencies and has laid the groundwork for a project focused on building resiliency in the community.
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