Dive Brief:
- Geisinger Health System announced plans to hire 2,000 additional employees this year, building on a September 2016 goal to hire 1,500 staff.
- The new hires will fill both clinical and nonclinical positions across the health system, with about half slated for direct caregivers. Among those will be physicians, registered nurses and advanced practitioners.
- This latest hiring campaign could take up to 18 months to complete because of specialty positions that being sought, Julene Campion, vice president of talent management at the Danville, PA-based health system said.
Dive Insight:
Among the positions Geisinger is adding are more than 500 nursing positions — 200 in the central region, 200 in the Northeast, 75 in the Harrisburg market and 50 in State College area.
The push to bolster its workforce follows a decade of growth, the company said. Over that time, the physician-led health system has grown from two to 12 hospitals and expanded its footprint to 45 counties, including southern New Jersey.
That growth has also forced Geisinger to triple its workforce, making it one of Pennsylvania’s largest employers with an estimated $8.9 billion economic impact on the state.
The health system has also been maneuvering to fare well in the changing healthcare environment. Last fall, Geisinger teamed up with St. Luke’s University Health Network to curb rising healthcare costs. Under the deal, the two systems share knowledge and experience around population health and value-based payment models. The partnership also includes plans to launch a Medicare Advantage plan and other plan options for commercial and employer groups within their combined scope, which comprises about 50 eastern Pennsylvania counties.