Be an Advocate

Live United and Support Our Community
We are all a part of our community, and being an advocate means helping our friends, neighbors, families and fellow community members.

Right now, people throughout the Lehigh Valley are hit hard by increasing costs for food, fuel, home heating oil and other vital necessities. We all want to help.

You can play a vital role and Live United. It’s the theme of this year’s United Way campaign. Your donation helps the United Way to provide relief to people in our community and also supports health network programs such as:

• The Caring Place youth development center
• Casa Guadalupe
• Central Elementary School
• The Center for Healthy Aging

Our health network’s president and chief executive officer, Elliot J. Sussman, M.D. (left), is this year’s resource development chairman for United Way of the Greater Lehigh Valley. Join him and Live United. Make your pledge by clicking on the United Way logo on your computer’s SSO toolbar. This year’s campaign ends Nov. 28. If you have questions about the campaign, please reach out to campaign co-chairs Bob Begliomini, Duane Ott or Donnie Robison.

Guide to Our Care
Look here each month to learn something new about the health care services we provide

Burn Care
If you have friends or relatives who live out of the area, they can access the expertise of our burn physicians at their local hospital. Our 24/7 tele-burn service allows physicians at other hospitals to upload photos of burn injuries to a secure Web site. Our physicians then review the photos while consulting with the referring doctor to ensure the best care.

Cancer Care
The health network is developing an agreement with Proton Therapy, Inc., to provide proton beam therapy for cancer treatment. A proton beam can be better controlled to limit the energy that affects your body’s healthy tissue while maximizing the dose at the tumor site. This leading-edge technology could be available at the health network in 2012.

Neurological Care
Our stroke team has a new tool to help remove stroke-causing blood clots. The Penumbra System treats patients who suffer acute ischemic strokes (those caused by blood clots that block blood flow through an artery to the brain). Our neurointerventional specialists use the system to vacuum the clots from the brain and save lives.

Heart Care
If you know someone with valve disease, tell him our heart surgeons perform more than 300 valve surgeries every year, the most in the region. We’ll determine the best option and either repair or replace the faulty valve. You can assure that person he’s in the hands of professionals at a U.S. News & World Report “America’s Best Hospital” for heart care and surgery for 2008.

Children's Care
With the opening of the Upper Bucks Health & Diagnostic Center, our pediatric rehabilitation specialists now care for children at six locations. They provide physical, occupational and speech therapies, and audiology services for children with cerebral palsy, autism, developmental delays, and neurologic and orthopedic conditions.

Refer and Reap the Rewards
When diabetes and a stomach virus caused Richard Schmick’s blood sugar to plummet, his relatives brought him to a clinic. His sugar rose, but then dropped again at home due to continued vomiting. That’s when relatives called Schmick’s granddaughter, child life assistant Dawn Miller. “My aunt didn’t want me to take him to our hospital, but I didn’t listen,” she says. Our emergency department nurse provided immediate care while his doctor explained that the diabetes medication Schmick took the previous day works for 48 hours. He needed intravenous fluids to raise his blood sugar. The next day, Schmick felt better. “He tells everyone his granddaughter works here,” Miller says.

Are you spreading the word about the quality of our care?
If so, call 610-402-3175 or e-mail Richard.Martuscelli@lvh.com and share your story in CheckUp.

ARTICLE TOOLS: