St. Luke’s Carbon County strategy

St. Luke’s University Health Network

When ceremonial shovels struck ground this fall for St. Luke’s University Health Network’s new hospital campus in Carbon County, it was more than a symbolic start of construction.

It marked the realization of the promise St. Luke’s made to ensure Carbon County patients receive a continuum of care without having to leave Carbon County.

The new $80 million campus, located on more than 100 acres at Fairyland and Harrity roads in Franklin Township, will accomplish that and more when it opens in spring 2021.

Three stories with 155,000 square feet of space, the new hospital will feature 80 acute care beds, and multiple operating rooms and procedure rooms, all equipped with state-of-the-art technology that is faster, less invasive and more comprehensive.

St. Luke’s Carbon Campus will have an expansive emergency department offering a trauma program, full diagnostic testing, advanced cardiac services and an interventional radiology suite that will allow doctors to unblock arteries and veins.

In what would be a first for Carbon County, the new hospital will feature an intensive care unit staffed 24/7 by doctors, nurses and staff who specialize in critical care.

The ICU unit will be a game changer, allowing physicians to perform specialized operations that require critical care.

This, in turn, will relieve families and friends of the burden of having to travel out of the area to visit critically ill loved ones.

For physicians like us, who have spent their careers caring for our patients in Carbon County, we look forward to having a new hospital that will offer access to top-notch specialized services. The hospital will accept all major health insurance policies, including Highmark Blue Shield.

As at all St. Luke’s hospitals, it will also provide care to those who are unable to pay. Now, in all but a few cases, our patients will be able to be treated here in Carbon County, where it will be an easier drive and less of a strain on families who want to accompany them.

This level of care is exactly what St. Luke’s had in mind when it acquired Gnaden Huetten Memorial Hospital and Palmerton Hospital through a merger with Blue Mountain Health System in December 2017.

Since then, the enhancements St. Luke’s has made in Carbon county are extensive. Among them: the St. Luke’s Health Center-Lehighton at 575 S. Ninth St., which houses a number of specialties, including spine and pain, ob-gyn, orthopedic and cardiology. The center also has a St. Luke’s Care Now walk-in center, providing urgent care, laboratory and X-ray services.

St. Luke’s also opened Care Now walk-in centers in Jim Thorpe and Palmerton and the St. Luke’s Wound Management & Hyperbaric Center-Lehighton.

It added medical staff at St. Luke’s Palmerton Primary Care and expanded hours.

In addition to all of this, St. Luke’s recognizes the special places that Gnaden Huetten, which was recently re-christened St. Luke’s Lehighton Campus, and Palmerton Hospital hold for the community.

In Palmerton, St. Luke’s is in discussions about turning the hospital into independent living apartments for seniors — something the community wants.

Watching all of this happening has been exciting. Access to care is one of the biggest barriers to good health. Now, with the new Carbon campus, that access will be a short drive away. We are proud to be part of the St. Luke’s team that is taking health care to the next level in Carbon County.

Dr. William Markson, Cardiologist and Vice President of Medical Affairs at St. Luke’s Lehighton Campus; Dr. Michael Martinez, St. Luke’s Carbon Surgical Associates in Palmerton; and Dr. Robert Reinhart, The Vascular Center in Lehighton.