Health care competition in the region continues to heat up as St. Luke’s University Health Network and Geisinger announced today they will build and co-own an 80-bed acute care hospital near Orwigsburg, Schuylkill County.
The health systems said it was the first time two health systems in Pennsylvania will co-own a hospital as a joint venture.
Funding and governance will be shared equally between the two nonprofit health systems, according to a news release.
SLUHN, based in Fountain Hill, will build and manage the hospital, and Geisinger, based in Danville, Montour County, will contribute physicians and specialty support staff and expertise.
A three-story, 120,000-square-foot hospital will be built on Paramount Boulevard, off Route 61 in West Brunswick Township. MKSD architects of South Whitehall Township designed the building.
The cost was undisclosed.
The hospital, as yet unnamed, is expected to open in late 2019, with groundbreaking beginning this spring.
In 2016, Lehigh Valley Health Network expanded into Schuylkill County when it merged with Schuylkill Health System and acquired its two hospitals.
Like LVHN, SLUHN and Geisinger said they wanted patients in the region to have access to hospital services closer to home without having to leave the counties.
“We know that many patients are leaving Schuylkill and Berks counties for hospital services. Our growing partnership with St. Luke’s will not only expand the range of health care services in that community, but perhaps more importantly, will offer greater convenience so that patients, including many of our Geisinger Health Plan members, will receive the care they need right where they live,” Dr. David T. Feinberg, president and CEO of Geisinger, said in a statement.
The hospital will include an emergency department and a full range of specialties and services, according to a news release.
SLUHN and Geisinger have collaborated in the past. SLUHN partnered with Geisinger’s employee health insurance plan in 2016. And in July, Geisinger will provide its Life Flight emergency medical air transportation for the entire St. Luke’s system.
Both health networks already have a presence in Schuylkill and Berks. SLUHN has owned St. Luke’s Miners Campus since 2000 and recently opened a St. Luke’s Care Now walk-in center in Hamburg.
Geisinger has an outpatient clinic on Hollywood Boulevard in Orwigsburg and primary care and specialty services, including outpatient surgery and radiation oncology in Pottsville, Frackville and Mahanoy City.
