ST. LUKE'S HEALTH NETWORK

Bond rating upgraded

Ratings giant Standard & Poor's recently upgraded St. Luke's University Health Network's bond rating to A- stable, up from the BBB+ positive the Network had maintained over the past three years.

Moody's, another credit rating and research provider, has maintained its A3 rating for St. Luke's.

St. Luke's will issue $75 million in bonds through the Pocono Mountains Industrial Park Authority in the next few weeks. The bonds will finance the network's seventh hospital in Stroud Township, which is expected to open in fall 2016.

Onia earns CHSOS certification

Joshua Onia, network director of simulation, St. Luke's University Health Network, recently earned certification as a healthcare simulation operation specialist by the Society for Simulation in Healthcare. He is one of the first 21 recipients worldwide to earn this certification.

The Hanover Township resident earned a bachelor's degree in business administration with a concentration in healthcare management from Muhlenberg College and a master's degree in instructional technology from Saint Joseph's University.

To learn more, visit www.ssih.org/Certification/CHSOS.

SLUHN to provide BASD sports medicine

Board members of the Bethlehem Area School District recently contracted with St. Luke's University Health Network and St. Luke's Physician Group to provide sports medicine services for the district's interscholastic sports programs.

St. Luke's will provide eight athletic trainers: two to each high school and one to each middle school. There will be an athletic trainer navigator to help facilitate services at the sites and a sports medicine liaison who will help with administrative and insurance issues.

St. Luke's will provide team physician services, pre-participation physical examinations, baseline performance and injury prevention screening, baseline concussion testing, sports physical therapy, educational programming, staff wellness programs and several community initiatives related to the BASD's strategic goals.

Pulmonologists news

Livia Bratis, D.O., Manuel Jimenez-Serrano, M.D., Nicole D. G. Yoder, D.O. and Thomas B. Zanders, D.O., F.A.C.P., pulmonologists with St. Luke's Pulmonology Associates, will now see patients in Upper Bucks and Upper Montgomery counties.

Pulmonologists are specifically trained to treat complicated respiratory diseases and conditions of the chest and provide patients with current treatments and new therapeutic methods such as bronchial thermoplasty.

For information or to schedule an appointment, call InfoLink at 1-866-STLUKES (785-8537).

LEHIGH VALLEY HEALTH NETWORK

New pediatric chief named

Marybeth Browne, M.D., has joined the medical staff at Lehigh Valley Health Network as chief of pediatric surgery and urology at Children's Hospital at Lehigh Valley Hospital as of Jan. 6. She joins Anthony Georges, M.D., and Michele Clement, M.D .in the division of pediatric surgery and urology.

She grew up in the Lehigh Valley and attended St. Thomas More School, Salisbury High School and Lafayette College. She earned a degree from Drexel University College of Medicine, Philadelphia; and a master of science degree in healthcare quality and patient safety from Northwestern University.

She trained in general surgery at Northwestern; and in pediatric surgery at Children's Memorial Hospital, Chicago. She is certified in both by the American Board of Surgery.