St. Luke’s Miners Campus Named Best Rural Health Provider

Coaldale, PA (11/16/2017) – St. Luke’s Miners Campus Rural Health Centers have earned the 2016 Rural Program of the Year distinction from the Pennsylvania Office of Rural Health. The SLM Rural Health Clinics were nominated for the award by Kelly Malone, executive director of the Schuylkill United Way.


Because 23 percent of its population lives in rural areas, Pennsylvania ranks nationally as one of the states with the highest number of rural residents. St. Luke’s Rural Health Program, which comprises three clinics located in Schuylkill and Carbon counties, provides excellent health care by:

• Creating easy access to preventative, specialty and acute care services.
• Providing more than 12,000 face-to-face primary care visits for patients and families regardless of insurance or ability to pay.
• Adding a physical activity component through the Network’s “Get Your Tail on the Trail” program.
• Using the creative “Flinders Chronic Condition Management Program” to motivate patients to address chronic conditions.
• Delivering endocrinology services for patients who cannot travel through the use of telemedicine.
• Improving literacy efforts by providing books to school students, “Little Free Libraries” at the clinics and a Reading Day when physicians read to students at elementary schools.
• Providing screenings and shuttle transportation for students to a volunteer optometrist.
• Providing a monthly Health van for students and staff who cannot see the Rural Health Clinic staff outside of school hours and a periodic Dental Clinic van.

St. Luke’s Rural Health program more than fulfilled the state’s criteria for the award including using innovative approaches, ensuring access, providing community resources and demonstrating a significant benefit to the rural population.

About St. Luke’s

Founded in 1872, St. Luke’s University Health Network (SLUHN) is a non-profit, regional, fully integrated and nationally recognized network providing services at seven hospitals and more than 270 outpatient sites. The network’s service area includes Lehigh, Northampton, Carbon, Schuylkill, Bucks, Montgomery, Berks and Monroe counties in Pennsylvania and in Warren County in New Jersey. Dedicated to advancing health education, St. Luke’s operates the nation’s oldest School of Nursing and 22 graduate medical educational programs and is considered a major teaching hospital, the only one in the region. In partnership with Temple University, St. Luke’s created the region’s first Medical School. Repeatedly, including 2016, St. Luke’s has earned Truven’s Top 100 Major Teaching Hospital designation as well as Top 50 Cardiovascular program in addition to other honors for clinical excellence. St. Luke’s is a multi-year recipient of the Most Wired award recognizing the breadth of St. Luke’s information technology applications such as electronic medical records, telehealth, online scheduling and pricing information. St. Luke’s is also recognized as one of the state’s lowest cost providers in comparison to major teaching hospitals and other health systems.