LVHN breaks ground on Carbon County hospital
Lehigh Valley Health Network has broken ground on its first hospital in Carbon County, network officials said during a virtual ceremony Tuesday.
Lehigh Valley Hospital-Carbon, on Route 443 in Mahoning Township, is expected to open in spring 2022.
It will be more than 100,0000 square feet and add 150 jobs, LVHN President and CEO Dr. Brian Nestor said. It will have 18 private inpatient beds, a 12-bay emergency department, two operating rooms, two procedure rooms and four observation rooms. A helipad to transport critical patients and a medical office building are also planned. Nestor said the hospital will be expanded in the years to come.
Services offered there will include inpatient care, surgery, rehabilitation, diagnostic cardiology and radiology. Telemedicine services will be offered from Lehigh Valley Heart Institute, Lehigh Valley Cancer Institute and Lehigh Valley Institute for Surgical Excellence.
LVHN’s vice president for market development, Terrence Purcell will serve as president of the new hospital. Before he joined LVHN in 2019 he was the president of the St. Luke’s Hospital campuses in Lehighton and Palmerton, both Carbon County.
“Lehigh Valley Hospital-Carbon is especially important to me,” Purcell said in a news release issued after the ceremony. “I’m truly excited about the level of care we are going to provide the community because of this new hospital.”
Fountain Hill-based St. Luke’s also is building a full-service hospital in Carbon County, having broken ground on an $80 million campus in Franklin Township last year.
St. Luke’s came to Carbon County in 2017 with the acquisition of Blue Mountain Health System. LVHN, in the meantime, acquired hospitals in neighboring Schuylkill and Monroe counties. Then, both networks embarked on building projects in Monroe County.
The networks have moved into the more rural counties as the health care landscape has changed in the last decade, with smaller, independent hospitals finding it difficult to survive. It’s harder for hospitals to make money in rural areas because of declining population and a higher percentage of older, poor and chronically sick people who rely on government health programs that reimburse hospitals at lower rates than commercial health insurance companies do.
The networks have brought more health resources to the Coal Region and the Poconos, broadening patient services and access to specialists.