“A lot of our folks live and work in communities where there’s a WVU Medicine hospital or clinic, and they’re familiar with what WVU Medicine looks like within their own communities,” Wright said. “However, West Virginia is a state that’s broken up into different regions, and the people in those regions are very different, so it’s sometimes hard to get news out about what you’re trying to accomplish throughout the state. …

“We wanted to tell the whole story of what we’re doing in totality around the state, and I wanted to explain the ‘why.’ … Our size, scope and growth is not just for size, scope and growth.”

“It’s to bring more services to this state and citizens to meet our long-term mission of improving the health trajectory of the state and to make sure we’re always going to be a West Virginia-based health care organization,” he said.

Wright said he wanted to underline at the summit that WVU Medicine is making major investment in the state, noting that since April 2024, the organization has committed nearly $840 million to a variety of projects.

Additionally, Wright discussed Peak Health, a health insurance company that WVU Hospital Systems majority owns in partnership with Marshall Health and Valley Health. Peak Health currently offers plans in 29 West Virginia counties, and in 2026, it plans to expand services to 22 additional counties, including two in Pennsylvania.

According to WVU Medicine’s presentation, the health system brought in more than $6.7 billion in operating revenue in 2024, a figure that’s been increasing over the years and is more than double 2020’s roughly $3.1 billion in revenue.

Additionally, WVU Medicine spent $3 billion in capital investments between 2015 and 2024, money that benefited the system’s 25 hospitals. The investments include 10 acquisitions and mergers since 2021.

“We have a 2.5% or 3% operating margin, which is healthy, but compared to other for-profit businesses, it doesn’t knock your eyeballs out,” Wright said. “However, we’re able to maintain that margin while continuously investing in our community. We’re talking big things like a new eye institute in the Elkins corridor, cancer centers in Princeton and Wheeling and new towers out in Berkeley and Jefferson counties. I think it was a nice message of totality for the senior business leaders of the state to hear.”