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Lower Macungie Township will have a new hospital by the end of 2023.
Lehigh Valley Health Network (LVHN) broke ground Monday on the project at the former Weis Market site at 3369 Route 100 in Lower Macungie Township at the border with Macungie Brough.
The network said the site will be home to a hospital with an emergency department and a medical office building to be known as the Health Care Center at Macungie.
Lehigh Valley Hospital Macungie will be the type of facility informally known in the health care industry as a neighborhood hospital, with a full-service ER and a limited number of inpatient beds, LVHN said. The footprint, at about 20,000 square feet, is smaller than other LVHN hospitals in the region such as LVH–Cedar Crest, LVH–Muhlenberg and LVH–Hecktown Oaks.
“As the region’s leading health care partner, we’re committed to making exceptional health care, including emergency care, more convenient and accessible across-the-board,” said Brian A. Nester, president and CEO, LVHN. “This hospital will provide closer access to emergency and inpatient care for residents where they live and work, when and where they need it. It strengthens the entire health network for the benefit of our communities and their residents.”
The hospital will be a licensed and accredited acute care hospital, open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Patients requiring surgery or higher levels of care will be stabilized and transferred to other, larger LVHN hospitals, the network said.
Other in-house hospital services will include lab, imaging and pharmacy. Imaging services, including X-ray, ultrasound, CT scan and MRI, also will be offered on an outpatient basis.
The Health Center at Macungie, at about 30,000 square feet, will house a variety of medical services, including HNL Lab Medicine, Lehigh Valley Physician Group (LVPG) family medicine, orthopedics, cardiology and pediatrics practices. In addition, the health center will offer outpatient adult rehabilitation and cardiac and vascular diagnostic testing.
David Burmeister, chair of Department of Emergency and Hospital Medicine, LVHN, said the neighborhood hospital model will deliver shorter ER wait times and favorable door-to-discharge times. “Patients will receive the same high-quality, compassionate care and exceptional patient experience that have made LVHN the gold standard in the region,” he said.
“LVH–Macungie fills a need by creating a health care option not currently available in this region,” said John Pierro, executive vice president and COO, LVHN. “This facility offers more capability than an ExpressCARE, with experience and expertise to treat the same cases that would traditionally be treated and released at a larger hospital, such as Lehigh Valley Hospital–Cedar Crest.”
LVHN is planning several other similar hospitals in the region, and announcements on groundbreaking events for those facilities will occur over the coming months as necessary approvals are secured.
