St. Luke’s Offers Vaccine To Entire Workforce and Emergency Medical Service Personnel

Due to advanced planning and scheduled vaccine rollouts across all campuses, St. Luke’s University Health Network was successfully the first hospital in the region to vaccinate all front-line workers who chose to receive the COVID-19 vaccine, and is now offering it to all employees and private health care practitioners in the region.

To date, approximately 7,000 employees have been vaccinated. “All of St. Luke’s employees are essential to the smooth running of St. Luke’s hospitals and network,” says Jeffrey Jahre, MD, senior vice president of Medical and Academic Affairs and section chief emeritus of Infectious Diseases. “From our physicians and nurses to those who keep the hospitals clean, prepare our food and deliver our needed supplies we cannot function without them. We will now offer the vaccine to all St. Luke’s employees.”

Following CDC Guidelines, the second round of vaccines will be for essential workers such as teachers, police and firefighters, while the third round of vaccines is for adults with high-risk medical conditions and those age 65 and over.

Vaccines are an important tool in the prevention and spread of diseases like COVID-19.  While the vaccine is not mandatory, St. Luke’s medical leadership recommends the vaccine as an effective way to protect against COVID-19. It is not a cure, however, and we must remain vigilant and continue our infection prevention practices such as masking and social distancing. For more information about COVID-19 and the COVID vaccination, visit https://www.slhn.org/covid-19 and follow us on social media.

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 16,000 employees providing services at 12 hospitals sites and 300+ outpatient sites.  With annual net revenue in excess of $2.5 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 established 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 38 fully accredited graduate medical educational programs with 347 residents and fellows.  St. Luke’s is the only Lehigh Valley-based health care system to earn 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.  U.S. News & World Report ranked St. Luke’s #1 in the Lehigh Valley and #6 in the state.  Three of IBM Watson Health’s 100 Top Hospitals are St. Luke’s hospitals.  St. Luke’s University Hospital has earned the 100 Top Major Teaching Hospital designation from IBM Watson Health eight times total and six 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.