Groundbreaking for St. Luke’s Carbon Campus

St. Luke’s University Health Network broke ground today on its new St. Luke’s Carbon Campus.

 
St. Luke's President & CEO Rick Anderson addresses guests at the groundbreaking. He is joined on stage, from left, by
the Honerable Judge Steven Serfass and St. Luke's Gnaden Huetten President John Nespoli 

Situated on more than 100 acres at the intersection of Fairyland and Harrity roads in Franklin Township, Carbon County, the new $80 million campus will provide area residents local access to a range of specialty services in a full-service, three-story, 155,000-square-foot hospital.

“What a great day for Carbon County! We are breaking ground for the creation of a regional medical center that will provide comprehensive state of the art care for the residents of this county for generations to come,” said President John Nespoli, President of St. Luke’s Gnaden Huetten Campus in Lehighton. “St Luke’s is all about community-based care and keeping care close to home.”

Built with American steel, the St. Luke’s Carbon Campus will be equipped with 80 beds, 20 emergency department exam rooms, three operating rooms and two OR procedure rooms. Specialty services will include trauma, cardiology, neurology and radiology, among others.

At its peak, construction of the Carbon Campus will employ over 200 construction workers through dozens of contractors, injecting a powerful economic stimulus into the local economy. Upon completion, the hospital will sustain hundreds of permanent, family-supporting jobs.

Work on the new campus begins as St. Luke’s enters the final stages of construction on two other new hospitals and a new hospital wing. The St. Luke’s Upper Bucks Campus outside Quakertown, the Geisinger St. Luke’s Hospital in Orwigsburg, Schuylkill County, and the Women and Babies Pavilion at the Anderson Campus in Bethlehem Township are on schedule to open this fall and winter.

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 15,000 employees providing services at 10 hospitals and 300 outpatient sites.  With annual net revenue greater than $2 billion, the Network’s service area includes 11 counties: Lehigh, Northampton, Berks, Bucks, Carbon, Montgomery, Monroe, Schuylkill and Luzerne 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 Lehigh Valley’s first and only regional medical school campus.  It also operates the nation’s longest continuously operating School of Nursing, established in 1884, and 34 fully accredited graduate medical educational programs with 263 residents and fellows.  St. Luke’s is the only Lehigh Valley-based health care system with Medicare’s five- and four-star ratings (the highest) for quality, efficiency and patient satisfaction.  St. Luke’s is both a Leapfrog Group and Healthgrades Top Hospital and a Newsweek World’s Best Hospital.  In 2019, three of IBM Watson Health’s 100 Top Hospitals were St. Luke’s hospitals.  St. Luke’s University Hospital has earned the 100 Top Major Teaching Hospital designation from IBM Watson Health seven times total and five years in a row. St. Luke’s 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.