Lehigh Valley Health Network

New dental van put in service

Lehigh Valley Reilly Children’s Hospital introduced a new Miles of Smiles dental van to the community Sept. 17 to bring dental services right to children by visiting the schools they attend. The service is for any child up to age 18, but is primarily concentrated at the elementary level. The new van, Miles 2.0, is a second-generation effort made possible through a $250,000 grant from Capital Blue Cross. Miles 1.0 had to be discontinued at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

St. Luke’s Health Network

State’s #1 ranked health care employer

Forbes partnered with market research firm Statista to survey 160,000 employees working for companies with at least 500 people within the United States.

Forbes’ best-in-state recognition is one of numerous employer-related achievements St. Luke’s has earned recently. In May, the magazine recognized St. Luke’s as one of the nation’s Best Employers for New Grads.

In a separate survey conducted in partnership with The Morning Call, USA Today and other media outlets earlier this year, St. Luke’s was named a Top Workplaces 2024 nationally, in Pennsylvania and in New Jersey. St. Luke’s was the ONLY health care institution ranked in Pennsylvania and the third-highest ranked health care entity in the nation to be designated a Top Workplaces in 2024.

Graduation ceremony held

The 32nd St. Luke’s annual graduation ceremony was held June 14 at the ArtsQuest Center at SteelStacks in Bethlehem. More than 60 physicians will remain with St. Luke’s – an enormous benefit to the greater Lehigh Valley, as approximately 40 percent of St. Luke’s physician vacancies are filled by resident and fellow graduates each year.

Whole blood stocked on ambulances

St. Luke’s Emergency and Transport Service (SLETS) is now able to carry whole blood on its specialized critical care transport (CCT) ambulances.

Whole blood is valued by EMS teams because all of its components – red blood cells, white blood cells, platelets and plasma – are present. The first and most common use is for patients involved in trauma-related incidents causing massive blood loss.

The CCT ambulances primarily transport patients between St. Luke’s University Health Network hospitals.

Tiny device aid heart program

St. Luke’s University Health Network’s interventional cardiology team recently debuted the Abbott PressureWire X, the tiniest device ever made for measuring the health and function of the mini-arteries that supply blood flow to the heart muscle. St. Luke’s is the first and only heart program using this innovative tool.

The Abbot PressureWire X, which is about the thickness of a human hair, is inserted by a cardiologist into a symptomatic, but unblocked coronary artery, and advanced to the far reaches of the vessel to seek defects in the walls and inner lining of the tiny blood vessel that lies downstream of a larger coronary artery.

According to Kimberly Wilson, DO, interventional cardiologist, “This new device increases our options for diagnosing and treating the network of tiny coronary arteries, which supply about 90 percent of blood to the heart muscle.”

Network recognized for patient safety

The Hospital and Healthsystem Association of Pennsylvania (HAP) on Tuesday recognized the Pennsylvania hospitals that have achieved exemplary results preventing infections — and St. Luke’s had more hospitals on the list than any other health system in the state.

Of the 22 hospitals honored for their patient safety, five are St. Luke’s.

HAP identifies top-performing hospitals using data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Healthcare Safety Network. To be recognized, hospitals must perform better than the mean standardized infection ratio in three key measures: central line-associated bloodstream infections, catheter-associated urinary tract infections and occurrences of clostridioides difficile.

HAP announced the 2024 Excellence in Patient Safety Recognition recipients Tuesday during its Patient Safety, Quality, and Equity Symposium in Harrisburg. They five St. Luke’s hospitals are:

• St. Luke’s Allentown Campus

• St. Luke’s Anderson Campus

• St. Luke’s Carbon Camspus

• St. Luke’s Monroe Campus

• St. Luke’s University Hospital, Bethlehem Campus