100,000th Emergency Department Visit at St. Luke’s Monroe Campus

St. Luke’s Monroe Campus in Stroudsburg cared for its 100,000th Emergency Department patient on Saturday, January 12.

This major milestone comes just months after the Monroe Campus marked two years of exceptional service to the Poconos. Since it officially opened in October 2016, the hospital has cared for tens of thousands of Monroe County residents, allowing people to receive the highest level of care close to home.

“The first new hospital in Monroe County in 100 years, St. Luke’s Monroe Campus introduced a higher standard of care to the Poconos,” St. Luke’s Monroe President Don Seiple said. “Right from the day we opened, we found that area residents were eager to experience St. Luke's medical expertise and culture, and we’d like to thank them for their continued support and trust.”

Now in its third year, St. Luke's Monroe Campus has created 750 family-sustaining, economy-boosting jobs for Pocono residents.

“Our ties with the community are very strong and continue to strengthen every day,” Seiple said. “We have developed strong partnerships with the residents here as we continue to invest generously in the community with both the financial support and resources we provide to many nonprofit and educational partners."

In the fall, for example, St. Luke's Monroe Campus worked with more than a dozen local community groups and families to build six raised garden beds – part of a broader nutrition education program that is part of St. Luke’s of Healthy Kids, Bright Futures initiative. Healthy Kids, Bright Futures is one of the five main focus areas for the St. Luke’s Department of Community Health & Preventive Medicine and includes a variety of programs and services for children “from cradle to career.”

Among those offerings, a vision program provides eye exams and glasses at no charge to the children in Monroe County, a dental program offers a full-service mobile dental clinic, and a literacy program brings hospital staff and elementary students together to celebrate Dr. Seuss’ birthday.

Other recent accomplishments at St. Luke's Monroe Campus include: 

• Earning stroke accreditation from the Joint Commission, a key designation that reflects an organization’s commitment to meeting high performance standards.
• Opening its new $22 million Cancer Center and Medical Office Building, which expands the breadth of offerings at St. Luke’s Monroe Campus to include medical, surgical and gynecologic oncology, radiation therapy, infusion (chemotherapy), imaging, orthopedics and a sleep lab.
• Opening St. Luke's Regional Breast Center-Monroe, a diagnostic breast imaging facility for patients in need of screening and diagnostic mammograms or advanced breast imaging. The facility has a new mammography system that features remote control, allowing patients to control their own breast compression with help of a technologist.

About St. Luke’s

Founded in 1872, St. Luke’s University Health Network (SLUHN) is a fully integrated, regional, non-profit network of more than 14,000 employees providing services at 10 hospitals and more than 300 outpatient sites.  With annual net revenue greater than $2 billion, the Network’s service area includes 10 counties: Lehigh, Northampton, Berks, Bucks, Carbon, Montgomery, Monroe and Schuylkill counties in Pennsylvania and Warren and Hunterdon counties in New Jersey.  Dedicated to advancing medical education, St. Luke’s is the preeminent teaching hospital in central-eastern Pennsylvania.  In partnership with Temple University, St. Luke’s created the region’s first and only regional medical school campus.  It also operates the nation’s longest continuously operating School of Nursing, established in 1884, and 28 fully accredited graduate medical educational programs with 226 residents and fellows.  St. Luke’s is the only health care system in central-eastern Pennsylvania to earn Medicare’s five-star rating (the highest) for quality, efficiency and patient satisfaction.  In 2018, St. Luke’s was named a Top Hospital in the Teaching Hospital category by the Leapfrog Group.  It has repeatedly earned the 100 Top Major Teaching Hospital designation from IBM Watson Health (formerly Truven Health Analytics) – six times total and four years in a row including 2018.  It has also been cited by IBM Watson Health as a 50 Top Cardiovascular Program.  Utilizing the EPIC electronic medical record (EMR) system for both inpatient and outpatient services, the Network is a multi-year recipient of the Most Wired award recognizing the breadth of the SLUHN’s information technology applications such as telehealth, online scheduling and online pricing information.  St. Luke’s is also recognized as one of the state’s lowest cost providers.