Strategic Planning for a Children’s Hospital in a Fast-Growing Health System and Region
Client: The sole full-service children’s hospital in Pennsylvania’s rapidly growing Lehigh Valley region, Reilly Children’s Hospital is affiliated with a larger health system and provides a comprehensive range of pediatric primary, specialty and emergency care. It is the only children’s hospital in the Lehigh Valley Health Network, now a part of Jefferson Health, caring for more than 1,000 critically ill and injured patients annually.
Distinctive Factor: The Lehigh Valley has experienced a population surge since 2020 and ranks in the top 10% of U.S. counties for growth, benefiting from its proximity to New York City and Philadelphia. The engagement aligned the hospital’s mission with market demand and optimized resource allocation to support a surging regional population.
Situation: Dreskin was retained by the leadership of Lehigh Valley Health Network to develop a strategic plan for Reilly Children’s Hospital, based on Ronald Dreskin’s experience as Chief Executive Officer of St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children, and the healthcare team’s understanding of the uniqueness of a pediatric academic medical center and knowledge of the regional market.
Engagement: Dreskin served as project manager and led a healthcare team to develop a robust strategic plan. The plan provided the organization with a long-term roadmap that aligned mission, vision, and values with priorities, goals, and actions to achieve over a five-year horizon. The team deployed a rigorous methodology combining advanced data analytics, infrastructure evaluations, and qualitative insights from extensive leadership and staff interviews.
Armed with these insights, Dreskin’s team:
- Envisioned the future state that the organization wanted to achieve.
- Aligned people and resources, ensuring teams worked toward shared objectives.
- Created a strict framework to evaluate capital allocation, clarify future investments, and highlight underperforming services to discontinue.
- Established KPIs and accountability systems to ensure disciplined execution of the plan.
Outcome: Reilly Children’s Hospital serves as a dedicated pediatric hospital with expanded clinical expertise for the entire network and access to care for patients and their families.
- Successfully developed a strategic plan
- Expanded pediatric services to all system hospitals
- Improved pediatric care in the region