Community Health System is wrapping up a year of historic growth and achievements, and we’ve just celebrated our 125th anniversary. 
 
From our humble beginnings as a boarding house in 1897, our organization has grown into one of the largest integrated healthcare delivery systems in the state, and we’re more committed than ever to serve the residents of our Central Valley who depend on us for care. We spent last year improving access to our facilities and services, partnering with a booming physician network and growing an increasingly popular health insurance plan.
 

Milestones reached in hospital expansion and physician partnerships

This past year was marked by several impressive milestones and achievements within Community Health System’s three entities — Community Medical Centers (our hospitals and outpatient centers), Community Provider Network (our affiliated physicians) and Community Care Health (our health plan):  

• The multi-phased Clovis Community Medical Center expansion that began in 2008 is complete, adding 288 much-needed hospital beds to provide for Valley families and the growing demand for hospital services in our region. In the past decade we also added 285 beds to Community Regional Medical Center.

• More than 4,000 patients were transferred to our system for higher level care last year. In Fresno County, Community provides 61% of inpatient hospital care and treats 41% of the inpatients in our five-county region. Over the past 12 months, our downtown hospital, Community Regional, had the highest patient census days (the number of days patients were in the hospital receiving care) in California, despite having 98 fewer beds than the state’s biggest hospital.

• We’ve also seen impressive growth across the higher level and specialty services we provide, including cardiac, oncology, neuroscience, neonatal intensive care and metabolic/bariatric surgery. This growth and expertise helps save lives.

• Community Health Partners (our medical foundation for physicians) grew to more than 300 providers and physicians practicing in 25 clinics in Fresno, Clovis and Visalia, as well as within Community Medical Centers.

• Community Care Health’s 11,000 insurance plan members now have access to 2,500+ providers and physicians at hundreds of clinics and hospital sites, including 20 urgent care locations. Community Care Health is one of the largest HMOs in the region. 

• We renewed our partnership with UCSF Fresno through 2026, which will add 12 to 15 new residents/fellows to the program beginning June 2023 — continuing our nearly five decades of supporting medical education in the Valley. In addition, almost 1,400 healthcare students and newly graduated professionals from eight educational affiliations trained in our hospitals in fiscal year 2022. This is part of our longstanding commitment to address our region’s healthcare workforce shortage.

• Community invested nearly $1 million to directly fund research personnel and participate in or facilitate 329 active medical research studies. The majority of these studies are in coordination with and led by UCSF and many of them, including those on Valley Fever, directly benefit patients here.

• Our most recent Community Benefit Report shows investments of more than $231 million to provide care for underserved patients and support for various community programs that benefit homeless patients, provide food to families in need, fund student mental health services and much more. 

Largest single investment in employee pay and development

Among our greatest achievements last year was our investment in our organization’s most valuable asset — our employees. Community was recognized by Forbes on the list of Best Employers in California for the third year, coming in as 30th, up from 84th the year before.
 
Addressing our staffing shortages and creating opportunities to support our employees’ career and work-life balance was a top priority. Our Board of Trustees approved $54 million, our single largest investment in pay increases, to significantly boost every employee’s salary. And we added 2,200 new team members, 178 of whom were former employees rejoining Community.
 
We launched LifeWorks, a full-service employee assistance program for team members and their families. LifeWorks includes mental health, fitness and financial well-being options.
 
About 470 employees advanced their education, taking advantage of nearly $700,000 in scholarships and tuition or professional certification reimbursement. 
 
More and more of our employees choose to grow their careers with Community and last year we celebrated 243 employees who have worked at Community for 20 years or longer, including Linda Lyons, Manager of Health Information Management, who was honored for 50 years of service!

For more about our FY22 achievements, visit our annual report website, which highlights our commitment to meeting the health needs of our diverse region.

Craig S. Castro
President & CEO
Community Health System