A Healthier Community

Our mission includes reaching out to you and our neighbors

‘It was a miracle’—That’s what Bruce Minarik of Coopersburg said when Lehigh Valley Hospital’s uncompensated care program covered the $79,000 bill for treatment of his severe burns. Minarik, a caterer, insisted on hosting a hospital picnic as a way of “giving back.” He is shown with patient accounts representative Joanne Kurtz.

Reaching out to people in need is part of our mission at Lehigh Valley Hospital and Health Network. It happens individually—as in the case of our information services staff—and also through the dozens of free programs we offer or partner in each year. The goal is to help create a healthier community, in mind, body and spirit.

The IS team is just one example of the many ways Lehigh Valley Hospital staff members make community connections. This year, psychiatrist Laurence Karper, M.D., helped conclude a two-year study of how best to meet the needs of homeless people who are drug-addicted. Karper is on the board of the Allentown Rescue Mission, which has served homeless men for the past 100 years. Half its clients are mentally ill or coping with substance abuse.

Knowing of the shortage of caregivers for the homeless, Karper and a group of colleagues secured funds from the Dorothy Rider Pool Health Care Trust to pilot a treatment and support program. They found that psychiatric care helped the men in the study decrease their drug use and become more settled in their housing.

A physician volunteer —Local children like (clockwise from left) Skylar, Mitchell and Jared are among hundreds helped by plastic surgeon Walter Okunski, M.D. Medical director of the Easter Seals cleft palate clinic since 1984, he and other specialists donate their time.

Plastic surgeon Walter Okunski, M.D., has a similar relationship with the Easter Seals cleft palate clinic. Funded by the Pool Trust and housed in our dental clinic at Lehigh Valley Hospital—17th and Chew, the clinic offers specialized care at no cost to children in need.

Special-needs groups aren’t the only recipients of free care at Lehigh Valley Hospital. We invested $84.1 million this year in service to our community, including uncompensated care for those unable to pay for needed services, and clinics and other programs for people with limited income. No one is ever denied emergency care due to inability to pay.

One of the best ways to create a healthy community is to lay the groundwork early in life. Lehigh Valley Hospital has a number of health programs for children and adolescents. To help little ones understand how to prevent accidents, this year we created a portable child-sized village called Safety Town. It teaches children in grades K-2 about bike, seatbelt and burn safety.

Our ALERT Partnership works to prevent alcohol and drug abuse and related social problems in the Lehigh Valley. This year, ALERT worked with East Penn School District on its new program “Take Back Our Children.” It included a Safe Student awareness campaign to prevent drunk driving and enhance enforcement during the high-risk spring driving season. Lehigh Valley Hospital is also a part of the Child Advocacy Center of Lehigh County. This not-for-profit organization was created to protect child abuse victims; assist child welfare, mental health, law enforcement and advocacy professionals; and build community awareness about the problem of child maltreatment.

‘Mom and Me’—Dozens of mothers and preteen daughters, like Mary Ann and Chloe Pickell of Coopersburg, enjoyed a day of togetherness in June. They learned about the health issues of adolescence, built understanding by switching mother-daughter roles, and received a framed photo as a special memento.

Our Spirit of Women program focused this year on the challenges of growing up with a program called “Mom and Me.” The goal: to help mothers and their preteen daughters understand what to expect and how to negotiate their way through the changes of puberty.

On the campus of Cedar Crest College, an exciting new resource is taking shape—the Da Vinci Discovery Center. Our new Creative Health Resources team, in partnership with the Pool Trust, created a “medical challenge” at Da Vinci, in which school students learn how to diagnose and properly treat the patient. Health and safety messages are an integral part of the project. For high school students, we are developing a live video broadcast in which students interact with our operating room team—opening minds and a new world of career opportunities.

A major health problem facing children and teens is the rising rate of obesity in this country. Our new program Body and Nutrition Explorers is one way Lehigh Valley Hospital is working to address the problem. This six-week health and fitness program for children ages 9-13 and their families promotes healthy lifestyles. Each week, participants have fun “exploring” dietary strategies to boost energy, control weight and prevent disease. They also sample physical activities like kickboxing, strength training, tai chi and yoga.

'HEY—Let’s Talk About Asthma’—Pediatrician Michael Consuelos, M.D., leads a session of the new program at Sheridan School in Allentown.

Another major health problem for more than 6,000 school-age children in the Lehigh Valley is asthma. This common chronic disease is on the rise nationally and too often is not well-managed. The result: asthma attacks that frighten the family and cause a race to the emergency room.

Lehigh Valley Hospital is part of a new educational partnership seeking a better solution for asthma management. The partnership, titled HEY! (Health Education for Youth), also includes AmeriHealth Mercy Health Plan, the Weller Health Education Center, CVS Pharmacies and the Allentown School District. Its first project is HEY—Let’s Talk About Asthma! The pilot program this spring reached 570 Allentown fourth-graders, who learned how to recognize and prevent asthma attacks and how to help themselves and their classmates in case of an emergency.

Shopping healthy on a fixed income—It’s a challenge, but Barbara Wilson of Slatington learned how in our Northern Lehigh Lean program. It helped her and 44 others lose weight through better nutrition and regular exercise. Wilson, who’s trimmed 45 pounds, says the program boosted her energy and optimism.

“The goal,” says pediatrician Michael Consuelos, M.D., one of the program’s organizers, “is to significantly reduce the number of asthma attacks in the Lehigh Valley. Control and prevention are the most effective ways to do that.”

At the other end of the age spectrum is a program called Life Links for older adults. Lehigh Valley Hospital helped create Life Links as a member of the United Way’s Lehigh Valley Alliance on Aging. The program stems from a recent survey of Americans ages 50-75. These are the growing numbers of “younger old,” who won’t need intensive health care or support for many years.

What they do need is opportunities—59 percent of those surveyed see retirement as a time not to slow down but “to be active and involved, start new activities and set new goals.” We’ll help them with the Life Links Seminar Series—Your Future, Your Way. It explores such topics as financial planning, health and wellness, civic engagement, employment, learning, relationships and life’s meaning.

Centro de Salud makes a difference—Virginia Rodriguez of Allentown has her diabetes under better control thanks to the care she gets (in Spanish) from Edgar Maldonado, M.D., and his team. Rodriguez, a native of Puerto Rico, also improved her diet and walks regularly.

Another growing population segment in the Lehigh Valley is the Latino community, projected to make up 36 percent of Allentown’s population by 2009. With this growth comes a need to address economic, cultural or language barriers that may affect Latinos’ access to good health care.

We’re building a number of programs with that goal in mind. One example is Centro de Salud, our bicultural, bilingual internal medicine practice. This year the practice went full-time with a dedicated clinical and administrative staff. The best measurement of Centro de Salud’s success is its low “no-show” rate (19 percent, compared to 28-37 percent in our other medical-surgical subspecialty clinics). When patients keep appointments, it shows they feel comfortable in their “medical home”—and that makes for better long-term outcomes.

The key is good communication between patients and their health provider. “More than three-quarters of the local Latino population is most comfortable speaking Spanish,” says Edgar Maldonado, M.D., medical director of Centro de Salud. To meet that need, we’re increasing bilingual staff in our community health practices (Lehigh Valley Physicians’ Practice has risen from 18 to 62 percent), and expanding our team of medical interpreters.

Yoga for heart health—Through our Dr. Dean Ornish Program, Gerard Jankaitis of Frackville, Roy Hildebrand of Nazareth and Mike Siwy of Whitehall (l-r) learned how yoga and meditation can help them reduce heart-damaging stress. This year, a total of 1,658 people took part in our yoga, tai chi, massage therapy and other stress-reducing programs.

Our Community Exchange program moved in an exciting new direction this year. Based on the concept of “time dollars,” Community Exchange connects people who have skills to share. Last year, more than 400 members helped each other with transportation, home maintenance, food shopping and other tasks that added up to more than 7,560 hours of service. Now, volunteers can earn time dollars and use them for complementary health services (such as yoga) at our HealthSpring family practice. In the future, we’ll expand the concept into senior centers, The Caring Place Youth Development Center and other health-related settings.

One of our most popular community health programs is Mini-Medical School, a lecture series given by the same specialists who teach “real” medical school. This year’s topic, “The Brain Has a Mind of Its Own,” was an in-depth look at mental illness. So many people wanted to attend that we offered a repeat version of the program.

In the area of disease prevention, HIV/AIDS continues to be a critical issue, as the rate of infection rises across the country. Our AIDS Activities Office is one of just a few sites in Pennsylvania offering free, anonymous testing with the new OraQuick Advance gum-swab test. It produces results in 20 minutes. In a new initiative, we’re providing the test to any pregnant woman in our hospital who hasn’t been tested for HIV. Prompt treatment—even during active labor—can greatly reduce the unborn baby’s risk for infection.

Pursuing a healthy vision of themselves—Hanover Township was the winning team, but everyone was a winner in Communities on the Move, a friendly competition in Northampton County to see who could “walk” the distance to the Fiji Islands and back (7,893 miles) in two months. Teams earned miles not just for walking but for all kinds of exercise. A total of 389 participants logged nearly 61,000 miles.

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