Bridging the gap to better health in underserved communities
In the summer, St. Luke’s Community Health Department once again distributed free meals to children as part of a Summer Meals Program started by St. Luke’s four years ago in collaboration with local partners. It is one of the network’s many ongoing initiatives to bridge the gap to better health by reducing social barriers.
Our family-supporting programs also include early childhood education, adolescent career development, employment assistance, workforce development, safe housing assistance as well as low-cost physical and mental health treatment.
At St. Luke’s University Health Network, our culture and values dictate that our network must be deeply invested in and engaged with our community, from downtown neighborhoods to rural enclaves — and St. Luke’s has been widely recognized nationally, regionally and locally for our initiatives.
St. Luke’s is one of only two health care systems in Pennsylvania that spends more on charity and community investment than it receives in tax advantages, according to a recent report by the Lown Institute. The Massachusetts-based independent think tank ranked St. Luke’s 16th nationally for its charity and community investment surplus of $27 million of a total $130 million spent in 2019.
The Lown data demonstrates that 82% of hospitals nationwide failed to meet or exceed their “fair share” of tax breaks. Their shortfall leaves a disproportionate share of charity care and other community support to be shouldered by St. Luke’s and other similarly socially responsible organizations.
Under the leadership and vision of our president and CEO Rick Anderson, St. Luke’s established the network’s Community Health Department more than 25 years ago. Since then, the department has forged long-term relationships with other like-minded individuals, community groups and business partners. The majority of our efforts are focused on evidence-based results, meaning it has been demonstrated through research and in studies to have a meaningful positive impact. All these efforts require funding, foresight and commitment.
Take for example the Hispanic Center of the Lehigh Valley. The Hispanic Center receives financial and logistical support from St. Luke’s, and during the worst of the COVID pandemic, our nurses and nursing students provided free COVID vaccinations and testing at the center. This dramatically addressed and reduced the health disparities COVID was unveiling. Another example is the adolescent behavioral health unit that opened at St. Luke’s Easton campus this year. It provides important emotional, psychological and psychiatric care for teenage patients.
At St. Luke’s, we are committed to go where there is need. Last year, St. Luke’s launched the area’s most advanced medical detox unit at St. Luke’s Sacred Heart. And, this spring, in collaboration with Lehigh County and Treatment Trends, St. Luke’s played a role in establishing The Allentown Center for Recovery not far from Lehigh County Prison and the hospital. This new facility, in conjunction with the hospital’s services, allows St. Luke’s to establish comprehensive care for those seeking help.
Across the street from the Sacred Heart Campus is the Sigal Center, a Star Community Health facility affiliated with St. Luke’s. The Sigal Center offers free and sliding-scale medical and dental care, mainly treating uninsured and poorly insured individuals. In partnership with St. Luke’s and many generous donors, a dental clinic was expanded to accommodate nearly twice as many patients as previously possible. Meanwhile, Star Community Health mobile dental vans and St. Luke’s medical vans deliver essential dental and primary care to school children who lack these basic yet vital services.
In Allentown and Bethlehem, our Sacred Heart Campus’ Parish Nurse Program focuses on our homeless and near homeless populations, offering routine medical care with food and clothing. During the COVID epidemic, the Parish Nurses arranged for homeless people like Eugene Kozma to quarantine comfortably in a local motel after testing positive for the virus. Kozma says he found the nurses “all very helpful and compassionate. … his was a very positive experience for me.”
The St. Luke’s Sacred Heart Parish Nurses and the Laundromat Ministries collaborate to staff a bi-weekly free laundry night. The teams distribute meals while providing medical care such as checkups for acute and chronic conditions, using the mobile vans. St. Luke’s medical students, many of whom attend the Temple/St. Luke’s School of Medicine tuition-free in exchange for committing to practice medicine in the Lehigh Valley after graduation, volunteer with this initiative to experientially learn about their community.
When the Lown Institute ranked St. Luke’s 16th nationally for its charity and community investment “fair share” surplus, its report focused on dollars and cents. We would all do well to remember what these figures actually represent: a continued investment of not only money but also effort and time in much-needed services for some of the most vulnerable members of our community.
Dr. Rajika E. Reed is vice president of community health at St. Luke’s University Health Network, which is based in Bethlehem but has campuses in Bucks, Carbon, Lehigh, Monroe, Northampton and Schuylkill counties.
This article originally appeared on The Intelligencer: St. Luke's bridges gap to better health in underserved communities
