LV Health Network

LVH among nation's top 3 percent

Lehigh Valley Hospital ranked for the 19th consecutive year as one of the nation's top hospitals on U.S. News & World Report's 2014-2015 Best Hospitals list. LVH is among the nation's top three percent of leading hospitals in 10 categories: cardiology and heart surgery; diabetes and endocrinology; ear, nose and throat; gastroenterology and GI surgery; geriatrics; gynecology; neurology and neurosurgery; orthopedics; pulmonology; and urology. LVH, the number three ranked hospital in Pennsylvania, is the only hospital in the region nationally ranked and the only hospital in the area to make the U.S. News national rankings in at least one specialty area every year since 1996. This is the first year in which the hospital ranked in double digits.

The specialty rankings and data were produced for U.S. News by RTI International research organization, Research Triangle Park, N.C. The rankings are available at http:health.usnews.com/best-hospitals and in print in the U.S. News Best Hospitals 2015 guidebook, available in August.

One Center City location opens

Lehigh Valley Health Network's LVHN-One City Center, is now open in Allentown. It is located in the Seventh and Hamilton streets complex that will include the PPL Center arena, the Marriott Renaissance Hotel and several restaurants. The sports medicine and fitness destination center includes a 17,000-square-foot LVHN Fitness location, a sports performance program, virtual sports simulator and an anti-gravity treadmill, physical and occupational therapy and other rehabilitation services, a medical specialty suite, a concussion and head trauma ices, a medical specialty suite, a concussion and head trauma program, a grab-and-go café and a retail shop.

Brian Nester, D.O., M.B.A., and LVHN's acting president and chief executive officer, stated that LVHN-One City Center has created 15 new jobs in Allentown. He also said 450 additional LVHN employees will relocate to LVHN-One City Center in the fall.

Circle of Life award

Lehigh Valley Health Network's OACIS is one of three national programs recently awarded a 2014 Circle of Life Award by the American Hospital Association to recognize innovation in palliative and end-of-life care. The program, optimizing advanced complex illness support (OACIS), was established in 2006 as the first formal palliative medicine program in the area to offer advanced complex illness support to patients in the hospital, outpatient clinics and in the home.

St. Luke's University Health Network

Hospital among first to implant valve

St. Luke's is the first in the region and among the first hospitals in the country to implant a smaller and more refined second generation transcatheter aortic valve. Approved by the FDA last month, the Sapien XT valve is used for patients who were not candidates for the first generation valve, and who have been deemed inoperable or at high surgical risk for traditional open-heart surgery.

System gets achievement awards

St. Luke's University Health Network received four Achievement Awards from the Hospital and Healthsystem Association of Pennsylvania (HAP) for its efforts to better health care in the state. The winning programs were workplace, patient safety, patient care and operational excellence. St. Luke's University Health Network has earned 13 HAP Achievement Awards since 2010.