By: Julie Wood
When reflecting on the highlights of her first few months serving as Pennsylvania Hospital’s CEO, Alicia Gresham, MBA, recalled the “sweet, full-circle moments” that she has encountered. A meeting with a generous donor, who first came to the hospital as a patient, became a chance to connect with several employees who benefited from the patient’s generosity. A guest speaker at this year’s Juneteenth event, Philadelphia City Councilmember Katherine Gilmore Richardson, shared that she was born at the hospital and that her parents, and she herself, had worked there.
Gresham was already living in her own full-circle moment. In January 2024, she returned to Penn Medicine, where she began her career in health care in 1992.
“It was a thrilling opportunity to come back to where I had my first job,” she said. “It was my first introduction to working in a real health care setting.”
Returning to her health care roots
Gresham first interned in the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania (HUP)’s Chief Operating Officer office, as part of her graduate program at Temple University’s Fox School of Business, providing administrative support in addition to data collection and analysis for process improvement projects.
Shortly after earning her MBA and Master of Science in Healthcare Finance, Gresham joined Penn as a practice manager for HUP’s Gastroenterology division and later as director of Access and Operations for the Scheie Eye Institute.
After 12 years at Penn Medicine, she then served as Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia’s senior director of Specialty Care and Primary Care. Gresham most recently was senior vice president and COO of Network Operations at Mount Sinai Health System, based in New York City.
Gresham is excited to be back at Penn Medicine. She credits a “sense of curiosity” as the key to success in her new role. “Questioning is my approach to learning,” she said. “It may sometimes feel off-putting to have someone questioning your work, but staff have taken really well to it. It’s an opportunity to bring in different perspectives and think about improving our clinical and operational practices.”
Priorities in patient care
One of her priorities as CEO is to prepare for how patient care is evolving based on national trends in health care. Gresham cited the gradual shift in patients seeking outpatient care as opposed to inpatient, particularly for surgery.
This trend is impacting hospitals financially because insurance companies pay less when the patient is not hospitalized, Gresham explained. “At Pennsylvania Hospital, as at other Penn Medicine hospitals, we’re looking at how to optimize our operating rooms and making sure we’re doing the right kind of care in the right type of setting. That means looking at our supplies and inventory to be more cost effective, but still providing the same high-quality level of care.”
Another one of Gresham’s priorities is preserving Pennsylvania Hospital’s history, as the nation’s first hospital, while also building it as a “future-forward” space for innovations to grow and prosper. “We want to be more intentional with the way we’re sharing our history and making it a part of our story every day,” she said.
Patients increasingly come to the hospital for innovative procedures and technologies, like neuroscience services including Gamma Knife radiosurgery, the spine program, and deep brain stimulation, or for other advanced forms of care like outpatient CAR T cell therapy and bloodless medicine program for patients unable to receive blood transfusions. When they do, Gresham hopes to also engage them with the history that lies within the walls of the 273-year-old facility.
“It could be through educational videos to play on waiting room screens, or QR codes that people can scan to learn about artifacts,” like the surgical amphitheater or the Physic garden, said Gresham. “We’re looking at how we can continue being a hub for innovation, while also providing that warmth and care that Pennsylvania Hospital is historically known for.”
Connected as part of one Penn Medicine
Now that Gresham has returned to Philadelphia, she’s enjoying walking around the city and relearning where everything is, especially seeing the things that have changed, like Penn Medicine’s West Philadelphia campus. “I’m blown away by how much the campus has changed in the amount of time I’ve been gone,” she said. “Last time I was here, Penn Tower stood where the Pavilion now stands. It’s an amazing hospital.”
Along with becoming re-familiarized with the area, Gresham has become more connected with the other Penn Medicine hospitals in Philadelphia through an integrated bed management initiative. Gresham and Pennsylvania Hospital’s executive leadership team are working with HUP and Penn Presbyterian Medical Center to address the national challenge of overflowing emergency rooms and bed shortages. The goal is to reduce waiting times by evaluating where there may be more space across the locations and redirecting patients to facilities that best meet their needs in an efficient manner.
“Working collaboratively is not only beneficial to all of us to optimize our services, but, most importantly, it’s beneficial to our patients,” she said. “This is an amazing organization that continues to grow and thrive in such a volatile time in health care. Those qualities helped me with my decision to come back.”