St. Luke’s Breaks Ground on New Hospital

BARTONSVILLE, Pa.— St. Luke’s University Health Network broke ground on the new St. Luke’s Hospital-Monroe Campus in Bartonsville. This will be the first new hospital in Monroe County in 100 years.

“St. Luke’s has been blessed by the strong support of people in the community, and today is no exception. I feel privileged to witness another tremendous outpouring of community support as we break ground for the seventh hospital in the St. Luke’s University Health Network,” said Dr. Charles Saunders, chairman of St. Luke’s University Health Network’s board of trustees, in a statement. “As a physician, I am particularly delighted that it is the physicians in this community that asked St. Luke’s to build a hospital where they could deliver a new standard in the practice of medicine. They have played a key role in the design and organization of this new hospital.”

St. Luke’s is investing $80 million into the 180,000-square-foot hospital. The hospital will have four stories, 108 private patient rooms — including 12 beds for critical-care patients — a large emergency room, helipad, operating rooms, a cardiac catheterization lab and the most modern diagnostic technology. The campus, nestled in a beautiful, natural setting, will include a large fountain and walking trails.

“The emergency room will be able to treat 60,000 patients a year,” said Dr. Peter Favini, vice chairman of network emergency services, in a statement. “My goal is to provide the best emergency care in the region. I spent 25 years providing emergency care in Monroe County and I am thrilled to return to direct the care at this state-of-the-art hospital. I look forward to welcoming my friends in the emergency-services community and the patients and families I formerly cared for.”

With the development of the new hospital, St. Luke’s addresses the community’s need for additional health care resources. Monroe County is one of the fastest-growing counties in the state of Pennsylvania. Much of its growth can be attributed to the opening of Interstate 80 in the 1960s. Nearly 170,000 residents call Monroe County home.

St. Luke’s Hospital-Monroe Campus will offer patients cutting-edge medical technologies to diagnose and treat disease thanks, in part, to St. Luke’s long-standing clinical relationship (more than 15 years) with GE Healthcare, a company based in the United Kingdom that provides medical technology and services.

The construction and opening of this new hospital will contribute to the economy of Monroe County. St. Luke’s held a construction vendor fair on the hospital site in February and also plans to hold an employee fair later in the spring.

“We will create 200 to 250 construction jobs over the next two years,” said Richard A. Anderson, president and CEO of St. Luke’s University Health Network, in a statement. “We are encouraging the use of local contractors whenever possible. When the hospital opens, we will create more than 350 permanent jobs with good pay and benefits. The number of jobs could easily double over the next few years as it has at the Anderson Campus, and each of these new jobs typically creates another new job in the community.”

The hospital is expected to open in fall 2016.