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St. Luke’s Miners Rural Health Clinics have received the 2018 Outstanding Rural Health Organization Award from the National Rural Health Association.

The award, which recognizes St. Luke’s commitment to expanding and improving access to health care in Carbon and Schuylkill Counties, was presented at the NRHA’s Annual Rural Health Conference and Rural Hospital Innovation Summit in New Orleans, Louisiana. On hand to accept the award on behalf of St. Luke’s was Nicole Geary, Office Coordinator for St. Luke’s Rural Health Clinics in Nesquehoning and Hometown.

“I am proud that our team was selected for the amazing work they do every day,” Micah Gursky, Administrator, St. Luke’s Rural Health Clinics, said. “In addition to providing top-quality and innovative clinical care, every one of our team members does truly care about our patients.”

St. Luke’s Rural Health Clinics provide over 12,000 patient visits annually, delivering high-quality primary care and community outreach programs to underserved populations in the two-county region. Among the innovative programs implemented by the Rural Health Clinics has been the Flinders Chronic Condition Management Program, an interventional initiative that has focused on improving the health of patients with diabetes and decreasing emergency department utilization among patients who had previously demonstrated unusually high rates of emergency department usage.

Other community outreach and health promotion initiatives include “Adopt-A-School” programs, connecting students and families to the health care system; a dental health improvement program; ongoing mobile health van services for schools; in-school programming for students on such topics as depression, tobacco cessation and substance abuse; the Walk with a Doc program; health education at local health fairs and farmer’s markets; and a community-supported agricultural program that provides fresh produce to residents.

In addition, St. Luke’s Miners Hospital recently partnered with the local transportation system to develop a fixed bus route with regularly scheduled stops at St. Luke’s Miners Hospital. Patients from surrounding communities can now coordinate appointments using this transportation service.

The St. Luke’s Miners Campus Rural Health Clinics were nominated for the award by Kelly Braun, Dental Delivery Systems Coordinator, Pennsylvania Office of Rural Health.

To learn more about St. Luke’s Rural Health Clinics, click on the attached video link- https://vimeo.com/262974130

Media Contact:

Sam Kennedy, Corporate Communications Director, 484-526-4134, samuel.kennedy@sluhn.org

About St. Luke’s

Founded in 1872, St. Luke’s University Health Network (SLUHN) is a fully integrated, regional, non-profit network of 14,000 employees providing services at 10 hospitals and over 300 outpatient sites.  With annual net revenue of $1.9 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.  St. Luke’s has earned the 100 Top Major Teaching Hospital designation from IBM Watson Health (formerly Truven Health Analytics) repeatedly – 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.