Jefferson Health has 32 hospitals and 65,000 employees. Here’s how the region’s largest nonprofit health system is creating cohesion.

In just under 10 years, Jefferson Health has grown from a three-hospital network to one of the largest nonprofit health systems in the country, with 32 hospitals and some 65,000 employees.

One of the challenges the sprawling system now faces is how to create a cohesive system across geographically and culturally diverse hospitals.

The system includes one of Philadelphia’s largest teaching hospitals, busy urban emergency departments, and suburban hospitals that offer critical care in their communities. Jefferson’s latest acquisition, Lehigh Valley Health Network is a leading health-care provider in a fast-growing region north of Philadelphia.

Baligh R. Yehia, president of Jefferson Health and its newly named chief transformation officer, plans to approach the task with this mantra in mind: As standard as possible, and as different as necessary.

Yehia told The Inquirer he wants to streamline big things, like electronic health records, supply ordering systems, names, logos and mission statements. But he plans to keep the quirks that make individual hospitals unique, like the community gardens at Jefferson’s Abington and Frankfurt hospitals, and the fashion show that Methodist holds each fall.

“We have this Jefferson culture that we’re building, but there are a lot of micro cultures,” Yehia said. “Every hospital in the system has an identity and they have a special community they serve, and people are very proud of that.”

Change is already in the works across the Jefferson system.

The health system’s Philadelphia-area hospitals all now bear Jefferson names. The facility that was previously called Albert Einstein Medical Center, for instance, is now Jefferson Einstein Philadelphia Hospital.

And nearly all are now using the Epic brand electronic medical record, which means patient records can be accessed across Jefferson facilities. Einstein, acquired in 2021, will be the last to join Epic within the next few years. Lehigh Valley already uses Epic.

A shared electronic medical record is key to helping patients take advantage of the expertise spread out across the Jefferson system, Yehia said.

Jefferson is also working on streamlining its systems for purchasing and distributing supplies.

In some cases, having different vendors across hospitals has been beneficial, such as when a massive hurricane wiped out operations at a major IV fluid supplier, Baxter International. Some Jefferson hospitals contract with Baxter, but others don’t. The health system was able to shore up supply at the affected hospitals through its contracts with other suppliers, Yehia said.

Creating ways for Jefferson employees to get to know one another better will also help unify the large system, Yehia said.

“People don’t want to be part of a machine,” he said. “They want to be part of a team.”

In honor of its 200th anniversary, Jefferson launched a campaign to log 200,000 hours of volunteer community service. (They’re up to 192,600 hours as of mid-November.)

Employees can log hours individually or participate in hospital-planned volunteer outings that Yehia says have helped bring together workers from the system’s various outposts.

Yehia said he also wants to expand on programs that shuttle employees across different hospitals, such as the SEAL nursing program.

Nurses on Jefferson’s SEAL team are assigned to a hospital for two-week stints, before moving on to another location.

The approach was designed to help the system fill staffing gaps, but has had the unintended effect of helping staff get to know their peers from other Jefferson hospitals.

“They’re really ambassadors for Jefferson,” Yehia said.

The health system is now encouraging doctors and specialists to sign up to work at multiple locations.