Special Edition - Spring 2011

Special Edition • Spring 2011

Network Warren Hospital, based in Phillipsburg, New Jersey, will join the St. Luke’s Hospital & Health Network, making the Network a six hospital system serving people in two states.

“Handling partnerships and mergers in the right way is an approach that must be learned...

The advantage right now is that St. Luke’s has that experience.”

— Bob Martin, senior vice president, Network Development

Adding Warren Hospital to the Network will benefit St. Luke’s St. Luke’s Hospital & Health Network is having a momentous 2011!

If the opening of the new Riverside Hospital and the arrival of the Lehigh Valley’s only medical school were not enough, the Network has just announced Warren Hospital in Phillipsburg, N.J. will join the St. Luke’s partnership, making the Network a six hospital system serving people in two states.

The New Jersey facility will be called St. Luke’s Warren Hospital once regulatory agencies complete their review, which is expected in the fourth quarter of the year. The Warren medical staff will remain an independent entity. Now patients will have access to specialists and sub-specialists in the St. Luke’s Network. The partnership benefits Warren Hospital by enhancing Warren’s ability to serve patients in its service area. St. Luke’s benefits by improving the integration of its tertiary and other services within the continuum of care provided by Warren Hospital. continued...

Warren Hospital, Phillipsburg, N.J.

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Network

Our Mission:

The mission of St. Luke’s Hospital & Health Network is to provide compassionate, excellent quality and cost-effective health care to residents of the communities we serve regardless of their ability to pay.

Our Strategic Focus: People and Relationships • Physicians, Employees and Volunteers — our most important assets.

• We will be the region’s health care employer of choice.

Simplicity • Continue to simplify management structure.

• Promote efficiency and effectiveness.

Integrity • Transparent, accountable management.

• Ongoing adherence to our Management Philosophy.

Quality • Focus on clinical process improvements using national benchmarks and appropriately share the outcomes of our ongoing focus on quality.

• Perform in the top decile in national pay-for-performance programs.

Cost • Perform in the top decile in Thomson criteria for cost-effective management.

• Continue to be the region’s low-cost tertiary hospital.

Network Pulse is a periodic publication for the employees of St. Luke’s Hospital & Health Network.

Ken Szydlow Vice President, Marketing and Public Relations Executive Editor: Stephen Andrews Network Director, Marketing and Public Relations

Robert “Bob” Martin, senior vice president for Network development for St. Luke’s, says the new partnership will be guided by a smooth transition. Bob adds, “I like to quote Rick Anderson, (president and CEO), who says, ‘This isn’t our first rodeo.’ The point is that it’s our style to listen and to be patient. This kind of change takes time.”

Regarding St. Luke’s experience with creating partnerships, this will be the fourth time a hospital with an uncertain future has been added to the Network. Quakertown joined in 1995, the former Allentown Osteopathic Hospital in 1997 and Miners Memorial Hospital in 2000. In all three cases, the hospitals grew in physical size, employment and services provided after joining the Network. Yet another example of enlightened partnerships is the Visiting Nurse Bob Martin, senior vice president, Association, which became part of the Network in 1993.

“Our experience is that people’s jobs become more secure Network Development and that we have added jobs,” Bob says.

“I’ve been on both sides of these transactions,” Bob explains. “I know what it feels like to have someone new come storming in and making changes. We don’t do it that way.

Handling partnerships and mergers in the right way is an approach that must be learned.

It takes a while to learn how to do this. The advantage right now is that St. Luke’s has that experience.”

As for St. Luke’s Warren being in another state, Bob says state boundaries often are arbitrary things. “Most people think of Phillipsburg as being a part of the Lehigh Valley anyway,” Bob says. However, there will be some distinctions. For instance, New Jersey has its own laws and regulations regarding hospitals and health care. One difference is a Certificate of Need requirement for reviewing capital projects and expansion of health care services. Pennsylvania eliminated its Certificate of Need regulations years ago.

Another difference is that separate Blue Cross organizations operate on both sides of the Delaware River. Bob says he believes that Warren is the only not-for-profit hospital in New Jersey that will be owned by an out-of-state entity. Nationwide, of course, there are large hospital networks with properties in several states.

Another facet of the Network existing in two states is that many people live in Northampton County, in particular, and commute to jobs in New Jersey. Having a hospital with expanded services in Phillipsburg may be convenient and attractive to them.

Bob says he’s aware that one concern expressed at Warren is whether its maternity ward, closed in 2008, might be able to re-open. Bob says, “It seems like that might be the right thing to do, but it could take months, maybe even a few years, to make a final decision to do so. I can say that we’re not planning to have maternity services at Riverside, but we will continue to deliver babies in Bethlehem and Allentown.” In the meantime, St. Luke’s plans to help Warren to improve its other women’s health services.

And, having St. Luke’s Riverside Hospital only 10 miles away may make it easier for physicians to serve patients at both locations.

Contributing Writers: Glenn Kranzley

“The more our employees get to know Warren Hospital and all of the opportunities there will be to work together, the better our employees will feel about the Network’s newest hospital member,” Bob says. He observes that the New Jersey community has given the proposed partnership with St. Luke’s a resounding “thumbs up.” And he adds, “This will turn out to be a winning decision that is going to be good for everyone involved.”

Design Supervision: Lori Diehl Network Director of Graphic Design

Warren Hospital has 214 beds and more than 1,000 employees. It treats more than 6,000 inpatients a year and treats more than 29,000 people annually in its Emergency Department.

Photography: Joseph Klepeiss Director, Media Production Services Betsy Toole • Anne Kemp

St. Luke’s strives to be the region’s health care employer of choice.