Jason Mitchell, MD, is unapologetic about wanting to be the best—a drive that led him to Geisinger, one of the nation's leading providers of value-based care. Now in his second year as executive vice president and chief medical officer (CMO), Dr. Mitchell takes pride in the organization’s continued excellence.
For example, in just the last few months:
- Geisinger was recognized for its support of health care workers as a WellBeing First Champion by ALL IN: WellBeing First for Healthcare.
- Geisinger Medical Center in Danville, Pennsylvania, and Geisinger Wyoming Valley Medical Center in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, were recertified as Comprehensive Stroke Centers, the highest level of stroke center certification there is.
- Geisinger Community Medical Center in Scranton, Pennsylvania, was recognized as one of America's 250 Best Hospitals™ by Healthgrades.
- Geisinger Lewistown Hospital in Lewistown, Pennsylvania, was recognized for high performance in the U.S. News & World Report Best Hospitals rankings.
“Being the best is not about reputation," Dr. Mitchell said. "It's because we provide the best care every single day to our patients and members. That really excites me."
Geisinger is part of the AMA Health System Member Program, which provides enterprise solutions to equip leadership, physicians and care teams with resources to help drive the future of medicine.
Strengthening rural health care
Dr. Mitchell arrived at Geisinger in March 2025 after nearly two decades at Presbyterian Healthcare Services, including 10 years as senior vice president and chief medical and clinical transformation officer. He knew about Geisinger professionally and was drawn by the chance to help bring premium care to rural families.
Geisinger is based in the central Pennsylvania borough of Danville, which has a population of just over 4,000 people, according to the United States Census Bureau.
The move to Geisinger was a full-circle moment for Dr. Mitchell, who oversaw one of the nation's largest nonprofit locum organizations early in his career and frequently traveled to rural communities.
"I really saw all the variation in medicine and the variable outcomes and complexity, and it made me think about quality differently," he said. "It made me think about access to health care differently, and it made me want to bring great health care to rural areas, because I saw all the discrepancies."
In November, the Geisinger College of Health Sciences and the Pennsylvania Department of Health hosted more than 100 health professionals, elected officials and community leaders to discuss rural health care—and the challenges and opportunities that come with it.
"There's this consistent mission to the community and the ability to serve all people," Dr. Mitchell said. "I'm so proud that I'm part of an organization that's serving folks who otherwise wouldn't have equitable care."
Focusing on innovation
It sometimes takes innovative approaches to provide that care. For example, Geisinger offers mobile units that bring dental, mammography and radiology services to patients at their homes. Telemedicine is also available to patients from their home or at nearby Geisinger clinics—for families who may not have reliable internet access.
Geisinger Life Flight® also provides a flying emergency room for patients in remote locations.
“Quality and value and innovation all go together," Dr. Mitchell said. "Everyone always wants to do a good thing, there's never been a lack of wanting to do a good thing. The question is, How do you do it faster? How do you do it better? And how do you repeat it over and over again at scale?
“That is the innovation piece. I really see us leaning into innovation as an organization,” he added. “We've done that historically, we have it in our DNA, and we're continuing to do it."
As CMO, Dr. Mitchell always has an eye on innovation. It's an interest that dates back to his early years at Presbyterian Healthcare Services, where he served as chief medical information officer during the height of EMR implementations and consolidation.
"I love good project management," Dr. Mitchell said. "I want a scope, I want a charter, I want a work plan, I want timelines, I want KPIs and I want to hit them all and do great things for our patients and workforce."
Being a connector
What Dr. Mitchell ultimately wants is to support, inspire, and lead in a way that values contributions of the entire team and opens up possibilities we could never achieve alone. If the Geisinger workforce was represented in a pyramid, he sees himself on the bottom, in service to his colleagues and our shared work to be the best.
Dr. Mitchell shows this in his regular meetings with direct reports. The sessions are not designed as "report outs" of them saying what they did. Rather, the goal is for Dr. Mitchell to better understand the work they are doing and how he can best support them to be their best. He also “loves to learn from his team and colleagues” and finds it “so much fun to work with creative and caring people who share my passion for quality and care.”
That same explanation is why he routinely travels among Geisinger's facilities and sits in on as many clinical and division meetings as possible. He's not checking up on the different teams to ensure they're doing good work; he’s trying to learn what their challenges are and what opportunities might exist, and then ultimately understand how to help them moving forward. He is also there to learn.
“Deference to expertise is critical in health care. People on the front line have the best understanding and solutions,” Dr. Mitchell said. “Our job as leaders is to listen and take these ideas and translate them into action.”
His motivation is to help reduce friction so that physicians and other health professionals at Geisinger can focus on providing the best care possible.
"Friction is exhausting," Dr. Mitchell said. "There's system friction, but there's also local friction. Our goal is to go through at a system level, as well as a service line level, and a clinic or unit level, and identify the friction points and just strip them out."
By removing friction, he believes physicians and other health professionals at Geisinger become more engaged because they have more capacity to focus on what they actually want to do, which is help patients.
Looking forward
Dr. Mitchell remains a practicing family physician. He believes that experience makes him a stronger leader and allows him to better relate to fellow physician leaders.
"There's a certain humility you need to have as a physician leader," he said. "No matter how much of an expert you are in your own specific field, as a leader, you know there are many more experts around you. A good physician leader is going to listen. They're going to have deference to expertise. They're going to think strategically. They're not going to go into a room and build a plan by themselves. They're going to build it collaboratively with others."
One of Geisinger's strengths, Dr. Mitchell said, is its collection of enthusiastic and skilled physician and advanced practice clinician leaders. The organization offers a variety of opportunities for these individuals to participate in leadership development activities and receive mentorship from others within Geisinger.
A recent initiative allows up-and-coming leaders within Geisinger to step away from clinical work for a finite amount of time and focus primarily on helping address a complex topic—such as reducing readmission cases or navigating social determinants of health.
"They get mentorship and they have an ability to explore new things," Dr. Mitchell said. "They begin to get opportunities to experience leadership, and over time, I see us continuing to evolve that development program."
One of the lessons Dr. Mitchell ensures everyone looking to lead at Geisinger understands is the role they play as health care professionals.
"This is a business about the heart," he said. "No matter where you work in health care, it's a privilege, because you're impacting people's lives in a very meaningful way."
